Czech Film Center

Synopsis

Jan Němec’s ”auto-documentary” recounts the story of how he filmed the Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia and smuggled the footage out of the country. Following on from his Late Night Talks with
Mother, veteran Czech New Wave director Jan Nĕmec (The Party and the Guests) contributes another film
to a genre that has been called auto-documentary. In 1968, he filmed the first footage of the Soviet
invasion of Czechoslovakia to be smuggled out of the country. It subsequently appeared in television
coverage throughout the world as well as in his own film Oratorio for Prague and the Hollywood adaptation
of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Here he recounts how he filmed the material and smuggled it to
Austria with the help of a girl called Jana, “the Ferrari Dino girl.” The 16 minutes of unedited film form the
centerpiece of the film, framed by semi-abstract images of buildings and city streets, with “guest
appearances” by Karel Roden as Nĕmec and Tammy Sundquist as Jana. Despite being a film “on the edge
of experiment,” The Ferrari Dino Girl provides a strangely direct and authentic document on one of the
century’s key events. Shown without commentary or editorial intervention, the footage itself attains
something of its original traumatic impact. (Peter Hames)