Czechoslovakia 1968 | |
---|---|
Directed by | Denis Sanders and Robert M. Fresco [1] |
Produced by | Denis Sanders and Robert M. Fresco [2] |
Edited by | Marvin Wallowitz |
Music by | Charles Bernstein [3] |
Production company | Sanders/Fresco Film Makers for U.S. Information Agency [4] |
Distributed by | Ocean Releasing |
Release date |
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Running time | 14:36 |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Czechoslovakia 1968 (also known as Czechoslovakia 1918-1968) is a 1969 short documentary film about the "Prague Spring", the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. [5] The film was produced by the United States Information Agency (USIA) under the direction of Robert M. Fresco and Denis Sanders and features the graphic design of Norman Gollin. [6]
It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject [7] and in 1997, was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress having been identified as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". [8] [9]
In 1972, Senator James L. Buckley obtained a copy of Czechoslovakia 1968 to show on New York television stations. [10] The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, J. William Fulbright, objected to the broadcast based on an interpretation of the Smith–Mundt Act, which would prohibit the domestic dissemination of material produced by the USIA. Fulbright complained to the Attorney General, but the Justice Department refused to intervene based on the interpretation of existing US law. In 1972, Congress amended the Smith-Mundt Act, based on this event, to explicitly prohibit the domestic dissemination of materials produced by the USIA. The USIA was abolished in 1999. [11]
Jan Tomáš "Miloš" Forman was a Czech-American film director, screenwriter, actor, and professor who rose to fame in his native Czechoslovakia before emigrating to the United States in 1968. Throughout Forman's career he won two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, three Golden Globe Awards, a Golden Bear, a César Award, and the Czech Lion.
Frank Film is a 1973 American animated short film by Frank Mouris. The film won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1996.
King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis is a 1970 American documentary film biography of Martin Luther King Jr. and his creation and leadership of the nonviolent campaign for civil rights and social and economic justice in the Civil Rights Movement.
The Living Desert is a 1953 American nature documentary film that shows the everyday lives of the animals of the desert of the Southwestern United States. The film was written by James Algar, Winston Hibler, Jack Moffitt (uncredited) and Ted Sears. It was directed by Algar, with Hibler as the narrator and was filmed in Tucson, Arizona. The film won the 1953 Oscar for Best Documentary.
The River is a 1938 short documentary film which shows the importance of the Mississippi River to the United States, and how farming and timber practices had caused topsoil to be swept down the river and into the Gulf of Mexico, leading to catastrophic floods and impoverishing farmers. It ends by briefly describing how the Tennessee Valley Authority project was beginning to reverse these problems.
Why Man Creates is a 1968 animated short documentary film that discusses the nature of creativity. It was directed by Saul Bass, who co-wrote it with Mayo Simon. It won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject. An abbreviated version of it ran on the first broadcast of CBS' 60 Minutes on September 24, 1968.
The United States Information Agency (USIA) was a United States government agency devoted to propaganda which operated from 1953 to 1999.
The Czechoslovak New Wave is a term used for the Czechoslovak filmmakers who started making films in the 1960s. The directors commonly included are Miloš Forman, Věra Chytilová, Ivan Passer, Pavel Juráček, Jiří Menzel, Jan Němec, Jaromil Jireš, Evald Schorm, Hynek Bočan, Juraj Herz, Juraj Jakubisko, Štefan Uher, František Vláčil and others. The movement was sometimes called the "Czechoslovak film miracle".
Precious Images is a 1986 short film directed by Chuck Workman. It features approximately 470 half-second-long splices of movie moments through the history of American film. Some of the clips are organized by genre and set to appropriate music; musicals, for example, are accompanied by the title song from Singin' in the Rain. Films featured range chronologically from The Great Train Robbery (1903) to Rocky IV (1985), and range in subject from light comedies to dramas and horror films.
Donn Alan Pennebaker was an American documentary filmmaker and one of the pioneers of direct cinema. Performing arts and politics were his primary subjects. In 2013, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award. Pennebaker was called by The Independent as "arguably the pre-eminent chronicler of Sixties counterculture".
Karl Earl Mundt was an American educator and a Republican member of the United States Congress, representing South Dakota in the United States House of Representatives (1939–1948) and in the United States Senate (1948–1973).
John Eliot Sturges was an American film director. His films include Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963), and Ice Station Zebra (1968). In 2013 and 2018, respectively, The Magnificent Seven and Bad Day at Black Rock were selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
The U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, popularly called the Smith–Mundt Act, was first introduced by Congressman Karl E. Mundt (R-SD) in January 1945 in the 79th Congress. It was subsequently passed by the 80th Congress and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman on January 27, 1948.
OffOn is an experimental film created by Scott Bartlett made and released in 1968.
One Survivor Remembers is a 1995 documentary short film by Kary Antholis.
A Time for Burning is a 1966 American documentary film that explores the attempts of the minister of Augustana Lutheran Church in Omaha, Nebraska, to persuade his all-white congregation to reach out to "Negro" Lutherans in the city's north side. The film was directed by San Francisco filmmaker William C. Jersey and was nominated for Best Documentary Feature in the 1967 Academy Awards.
The Hole is a 15-minute animated film by John Hubley and Faith Hubley.
Denis Sanders was an American film director, screenwriter and producer who directed the debut performances of Robert Redford and Tom Skerritt in the 1962 film War Hunt. He won two Academy Awards, the first for Best Short Subject in 1955 for A Time Out of War that had served as his master's degree thesis at UCLA and which he co-scripted with his brother Terry Sanders; and the second for Best Documentary in 1970 for Czechoslovakia 1968. In 1958, he teamed up again with Terry Sanders to adapt Norman Mailer's World War II novel The Naked and the Dead.
The March, also known as The March to Washington, is a 1964 documentary film by James Blue about the 1963 civil rights March on Washington. It was made for the Motion Picture Service unit of the United States Information Agency for use outside the United States – the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act prevented USIA films from being shown domestically without a special act of Congress. In 1990 Congress authorized these films to be shown in the U.S. twelve years after their initial release.
Robert Maurice Fresco was an American film producer and screenwriter. Along with Denis Sanders, he won the Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject for Czechoslovakia 1968.