Second Run Releases Jakubisko´s Birds, Orphans and Fools

After the release of The Sun in a Net in August 2013, UK´s Second Run releases its second title of the Slovak classics series and presents one of the most radical films of the Czechoslovak New Wave, Juraj Jakubisko´s Birds, Orphans and Fools (1969), licensed by the Slovak Film Institute.

Jakubisko´s tale of love, death and insanity focuses on the unconventional relationship between two men and a Jewish orphan girl as they travail a war-torn landscape of bombed-out churches and wrecked homes. After its completion in 1969, the film was repressed by the Communist Censorship Authorities and spent years locked in vaults only to be rediscovered after 1989 Velvet Revolution and come to rank among the five best Slovak films by Slovak and Czech film critics.

Mehelli Modi of Second Run comments on the motivation to release this particular title in the first Slovak series with his publishing house: Slovak cinema is one of the least known international cinemas in the UK and Juraj Jakubisko’s wonderful early films have never been released here.

Birds, Orphans and Fools is the first of Jakubisko’s films that Second Run are releasing and we hope to follow it with more films from this key Slovak artist. The film is, undoubtedly, politically and formally one of the most radical films of the Czechoslovak New Wave, complemented by an influential visual approach through the cinematography of Igor Luther and the remarkable musical motifs from the great Zdeněk Liška.

There’s a wonderful piece of dialogue in the film which catches its special essence, “Courage for foolishness”. What an astonishing rediscovery, I hope, Juraj Jakubisko’s Birds, Orphans and Fools will be!

The DVD is presented in a superb new HD digital transfer with restored picture and sound and features a new essay on the film by author Peter Hames.

The Birds entered the market on June 24, 2014, with a considerable response from the critics:
MovieMail, by Michael Brooke:
Second Run’s second Slovak classic could hardly be more different from last year’s The Sun in a Net: it becomes obvious in seconds why director Juraj Jakubisko is known as ‘the Slovak Fellini’ and has also attracted comparisons with Peter Greenaway, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Emir Kusturica and Sergo Parajanov. ... Filled with dazzling, hallucinatory images but suppressed until the Velvet Revolution unlocked the vaults, this is another extraordinary rediscovery of Slovak cinema.

The Arts Desk, by Tom Birchenough: Visuals and theatrics run rife in 1969 Slovak rediscovery

What an astonishing rediscovery Juraj Jakubisko’s Birds, Orphans and Fools is! The 1969 Slovak film stans both outside history, and yet firmly within the context of its time, the year after Soviet troops quelled the Prague Spring. But its dating is eternal: the title’s inspired by the folk saying, “God takes care of birds, orphans and fools.

Second Run DVDs are available in stores, through the website of Second Run and all the online retailers such as:
Birds, Orphans and Fools on Amazon
Birds, Orphans and Fools on MovieMail - includes a review by Michael Brooke
Birds, Orphans and Fools on Zavvi

Related information at AIC:
2013: The Sun in a Net on Second Run DVD
2013: Malavida collection of films by Stefan Uher
2010: Slovak films released on malavida DVDs

published: 26.06.2014
updated: 22.02.2015