Every Week Seven Days

Although little known beyond the borders of Slovakia (and the Czech Republic), Eduard Grečner is a key figure in the development of modern cinema in Central and Eastern Europe. First as an assistant director to Štefan Uher on his seminal Slnko v sieti (1963), the first work of the Czechoslovak New Wave, and then as an auteur in his own right with his feature debut Every Week Seven Days, which is even more experimental in tone: more jarring and abstract – sharp, pointed, poignant. 

The film could have been a lyrical evocation of the ČSSR's first generation: the youngsters born during the war, who grew up in a state violently at pains to find and define itself, and were now ready to break away from the nation-builder ethics of their elders – but Grečner turned it into an anxiety-riddled existentialist vision of a whole globe in fear. A staggering monument freshly restored!