Army Film and the Avant Garde: Cinema and Experiment in the Czechoslovak Military - Tapa dura

[A] well-researched, analytically perceptive, and engagingly written book. * Slavic Review * Much like the subversive moving images she chronicles in Army Film and the Avant Garde, her work itself upends and complicates received wisdom what we think we know about government-sponsored film and Eastern European cinema-rescuing the untold story of Army Films from the dustbin of history and deftly rewriting film scholarship in the process. Summer 2015 * Film Quarterly * A fine work of scholarship. . . . Highly recommended. * Choice *

During the 1968 Prague Spring and the Soviet-led invasion and occupation that followed, Czechoslovakia's Army Film studio was responsible for some of the most politically subversive and aesthetically innovative films of the period. Although the studio is remembered primarily as a producer of propaganda and training films, some notable New Wave directors began their careers there, making films that considerably enrich the history of that movement. Alice Lovejoy examines the institutional and governmental roots of postwar Czechoslovak cinema and provides evidence that links the Army Film studio to Czechoslovakia's art cinema. By tracing the studio's unique institutional dimensions and production culture, Lovejoy explores the ways in which the "military avant-garde" engaged in dialogue with a range of global film practices and cultures. (The print version of the book includes a DVD featuring 16 short films produced by the Czechoslovak Ministry of Defense. The additional media files are not available on the eBook.)