The Dissolution of Czechoslovakia in Parliament

Pavel Koutecký / Czech Republic / 1993 / The film already had its Czech Premiere / 75 min.

synopsis

The Fourth Munich, the burning circus or surrender to reality – this is what some politicians have called the discussion of the law on the dissolution of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic, which took place at the end of 1992. The camera capturing this event is not a fly on the wall, but an intrusive mosquito in whose presence politicians fall out of role and reveal their true colours.

Not only a funeral procession for the deceased brotherhood, but also a bust of T.G. Masaryk passes through the former Federal Assembly building. The velvet divorce of a Czechoslovak marriage that lasted seventy-four years is thus also a ghost story about the demise of Czechoslovak statehood and the country's uncertain future in chaos.

“Parliament has become an environment for the inflation of words, a place for the discharge of unsubstantiated ambitions, a laboratory for personal bitterness.” — Jan Ruml

biography

Pavel Koutecký (1956–2006), director, screenwriter and teacher, was one of the most important Czech documentary filmmakers. He collaborated with the Film and Sociology Association. He focused on time-lapse documentaries about the protagonists of the Velvet Revolution. After his tragic death during filming in 2007, the Pavel Koutecký Award began to be awarded.