Related Links: Official site | Listen to clips on Radio Praha | Read reviews on all of the films in the Village Voice

The political and social upheavals of twentieth-century Czechoslovakia – war and occupation, the twin specters of Nazism and Communism, the Velvet Revolution – have never been more intimately rendered than in Jan Sikl's landmark film cycle, Private Century.

Composed entirely of family home movies, still photographs, letters, and diaries dating from the 1920s to the 1960s, Private Century explores how sweeping historical events transform the private lives of ordinary people, and how small domestic pleasures can crystallize into profound and enduring memories.

A prosperous farmer, an ethnic German citizen of Czechoslovakia, loses his land and his birthright after the 1938 Nazi occupation of Sudetenland; émigrés of the Russian intelligentsia, cast out by Stalin, take root and flourish in Prague; two ambitious artists, a sculptor and a composer, pledge themselves to the Communist State and cause their families to suffer.

Sikl deepens the work's psychological complexity by having surviving members comment on their family histories, by his subtle juxtaposition of sound and image, and by the structural organization that gives shape to the eight 52-minute films.

Jan Sikl: Born in Prague in 1957, Sikl is an award-winning documentarist and screenwriter.

These four two-part programs – each lasting a little under two hours – can be seen independently or in any order, or you can watch the entire cycle in the order Jan Sikl proposed on Saturday January 16.

Program A: King of Velichoky + Daddy and Lili Marlene
Fri Jan 15: 6:30 Sat 16: 1:30 Mon 18: 8:30

Program B: Statuary of Grandad Vinda + See You in Denver
Fri Jan 15: 8:30 Sat 16: 3:30 Mon 18: 6:30

Program C: One Stroke of Butterfly Wings + With Kisses from Your Love
Sat Jan 16: 6:30 Sun 17: 6:00 Tues 18: 8:30

Program D: Small Russian Clouds of Smoke + Low Level of Flight
Sat Jan 16: 8:30 Sun 17: 8:00 Tues 18: 6:30

"A brilliant and inspired piece of filmmaking... a real gem." - Glenn Erickson, DVD Savant

"As Private Century builds to a devastating attack on Czech communism, this movie of memories argues that the greatest sin is memory's willful obliteration." – J Hoberman, Village Voice

Media Screeners Available

Photos available here