The Firemen’s Ball (Dual Format Edition)

It’s the annual firemen’s ball in a small Czech town, and the organisers decide to liven up the usually dull event with a raffle and a beauty contest. But with the former plagued by thievery and the latter by bribery, the event rapidly descends into farce and that s before a fire breaks out…

The last film that Milo Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest, Amadeus) made in his native country and language, The Firemen’s Ball is a sparkling comedy that s also one of the best showcases of the director s uncanny ability to extract flawless performances out of an entirely non-professional cast largely made up of actual firemen.

It was nominated for an Oscar, but the Czech Communist authorities were so convinced that it was a satirical allegory about official incompetence that the film was officially banned forever , or at least until the 1989 Velvet Revolution. It s now regarded as one of the greatest of all Czech films.

Special features:
– New 4K restoration by the Czech National Film Archive
– High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations
– Original Czech soundtrack in uncompressed PCM mono audio
– Optional English subtitles
– Appreciation by Czech film expert David Sorfa
– Archival interviews with director Milo Forman, cinematographer Miroslav Ond í ek and co-writer Ivan Passer
– New Wave Faces: Michael Brooke salutes the non-professional actors who made an indelible impression on 1960s Czech cinema
– Reversible sleeve featuring two pieces of artwork from the original release