Accident

This 1985 film, directed by Antonín Kopřiva and based on a novel by Litvínov native Jiří Švejda, is about a normal, conscientious and decent man who due to his personal ambitions finds himself on a slippery slope. Demolition blaster Kamil Coufal (Petr Pospíchal) accepts an opportunity to make some money on the side as he longs to finally realise his dream of buying a weekend cottage. He gets increasingly entangled in petty thefts and illicit dealings, thus not only putting his work but also the – relative – stability of his marriage at stake… Petr Novotný wrote the screenplay with a very sensitive understanding of Švejda’s novel. The impossibility of personal self-fulfilment so typical of that period, as well as the bleakness of the devastated North Bohemian landscape, thus seep into this classic morality tale. Attesting to the powerfulness of this bleakly melancholic account are also the fact that the communist regime’s censors interfered with the film’s final appearance and the reality that director Kopřiva was not given a chance to work again until the 1989 Velvet Revolution.