Creating around 30 short films, Švankmajer often used biting metaphors. His main themes were censorship and self-censorship, which permeated his early works in Prague in the early 1960s. Even the title of his first short film included the word “trick”. 

Unable to accept the normalisation policy of communism, Švankmajer emigrated to Austria with his family in 1968. However, he returned a year later, continuing to work with coded messages in his films, culminating in Czech surrealism. In the 1970s and 1980s, Švankmajer delved into the human psyche, portraying it as an unpredictable, murky, and contradictory space. “Censorship has the advantage of making you express yourself in very inventive ways and think in symbols… those are the only weapons you have against censorship,” he concludes. 

In 1993, when Czechoslovakia regained its independence and was divided into two countries, Švankmajer almost came close to stopping making short films. This marked the decline of his “encrypted form”. The RIGA IFF retrospective screening includes nine of his short films – a feast of the Aesopian and language games. Nine masterful, fierce and timeless film tricks.

Foreword by the programme curator: Bach, clay, heaps of absurdity, and heated dialogues – the evolution of surrealism and style in nine examples. Švankmajer’s visual polyphony unloosens, makes you sigh, stimulates, and soothes, but above all, it awakens.