A Report on the Party and the Guests [O slavnosti a hostech], Czechoslovakia, 1966, comedy, drama, 71 min, VO, English subtitles

Director: Jan Němec, Producer: Jan Procházka, Screenplay: Ester Krumbachová, Jan Němec Cast: Ivan Vyskočil, Jan Klusák, Jiří Němec, Pavel Bošek, Karel Mareš, Evald Schorm, Jana Prachařová, Zdena Salivarová-Škvorecká, Helena Pejšková, Miloň Novotný, Dana Němcová

In Jan Němec’s surreal fable, a picnic is rudely transformed into a lesson in political hierarchy when a handful of mysterious authority figures show up.

A small group of adult bourgeois friends are on a day outing in the country, that outing which includes having a picnic. While they are going for a walk after the picnic, they encounter a group of officious looking men who commandeer them to a small clearing. Although there is no direct threat and the picnickers are not scared, they nonetheless feel the need to do what the men say. The men, led by one called Rudolph, set the rules of "the game". Ultimately, the picnickers learn that Rudolph was supposed to invite them to a party nearby. Much like the game, the party's host sets the rules for the party to which the picnickers and all the other guests must abide. Order in the eyes of the host seems to be paramount. Although the picnickers and the other guests enjoy many aspects of the party, some just do not want to be there, such thinking which cannot be tolerated.

A Report on the Party and Guests is a 1966 Czechoslovak political satire film directed by Jan Němec. It was entered for the 1968 Cannes Film Festival, but the festival was aborted owing to the events of May 1968 in France. The film was banned from 1966 to 1968 for being perceived as an allegory of totalitarian regimes. After a short release during the Prague Spring it was banned again for the next twenty years. In 1974 director Jan Němec was forced to leave the country.

Cycle: Czech Republic: 100 years of the Republic in cinematography