Event

Closely Watched Trains

At a village railway station in occupied Czechoslovakia, a bumbling dispatchers apprentice longs to liberate himself from his virginity. Oblivious to the war and the resistance that surrounds him, this young man embarks on a journey of sexual awakening and self-discovery, encountering a universe of frustration, eroticism, and adventure within his sleepy backwater depot. Wry and tender, Academy Award™-winning Closely Watched Trains is a masterpiece of human observation and one of the best-loved films of the Czech New Wave.

1968 Academy Awards | Winner: Best Foreign Language Film

"A quiet, charming, very, human film. It comes from Czechoslovakia and isn't pushy like those big American movies; it will not force its point of view on you, or sweep you up in a tide of emotion." Ebert

"A note-perfect dissection of how male sexual solipsism and the world at large intersect." - Antagony & Ecstasy

"Jií Menzel's 1966 masterwork of the Czechoslovakian New Wave captures the country's unique cultural identity via a subversive wartime story based on a novel by Bohumil Hrabal" - Cole Smithey

"Meznel's greatest work, and indeed the pinnacle of all Czech New Wave films." - Combustible Celluloid