Czechoslovak New Wave

It began around 1963 with Milos Forman's Black Peter, and bloomed in the liberalizing air that led toward the Prague Spring. These were films that mixed mischief with poetry — laughing while gently touching the edges of the regime. There was no manifesto. Then in 1968, Soviet tanks rolled in, and the wave closed. But the filmmakers didn't stop making films. Some left the country. Others stayed and continued in different forms.