In this modern-day fairy tale and rediscovered Czech New Wave cult classic, an ordinary Bohemian village is visited by a magician (Jan Werich), his beautiful assistant Diana (Emília Vásáryová), and a magic cat with the power to reveal people in colours that indicate their true natures. Yellow for the unfaithful, purple for liars, red for lovers like Robert (Vlastimil Brodský), a bighearted school teacher whose independence of thought places him at odds with the town’s conservative authorities. When the cat reveals the villagers as they really are and the town descends into whimsical chaos, humourless school principal Karel (Jirí Sovák) vows to hunt down the feline and put an end to its anarchic reign. Ahead of its time in experimenting with stylized colour and extended political metaphor, The Cassandra Cat is director Vojtech Jasný’s triumphant excursion into fantasy as a mirror of real-life social divisions and hypocrisies. (Janus Films)

Restoration Credits: 4K restoration carried out in 2021 at L’Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna, under the supervision of Národní filmový archiv, Prague.