Watch Moravian Hellas (1964) Online

Karel Vachek’s graduate film offers us a documentary essay which is both a light-hearted and aggressive little piece and also a parody of investigative film journalism. The Strážnice folk festival, backed by the cultural Party apparatus of the time, for years had little to commend itself to authentic folklore. In the film the event assumes the form of a bizarre stage spectacle with almost surrealistic elements that Vachek reinforces with unconventional approaches (commentary appearing as titles on screen, singing, declamations into the camera, feature etudes, the fusion of news coverage and fiction). The result is a stirring film collage depicting various characters, from crowd-pleasers, Easter egg decorators, kitsch artists and peddlers, to museologists and local residents, all of whom come up against the eccentric "identical” twin reporters Karel and Jan Saudek and a bored actress who appears as an extra. Using their special blend of irony and wit, they present us with the sad truth. Read More

Watch Moravian Hellas online. Featuring Josef Lebánek and Jan Saudek, Moravian Hellas is classified as Documentary genre movie with an average rating across the web of 5.5. It is available for streaming online in the UK on 1 services such as DocAlliance Films. The movie was filmed in Czechoslovakia and was released on 1964. Moravian Hellas was directed by Karel Vachek. Read Less