People and Sausages

Pavel Blumenfeld / Czechoslovakia / 1948 / The film already had its Czech Premiere / 12 min.

synopsis

If you think shopping malls are crowded, you probably haven’t experienced a Prague canteen in the late 1940s. Two thousand hot dogs sold every day, two thousand human faces and destinies. This film essay presents Prague’s vending machines, snack bars, and cheap cafeterias as a mini-zoo crowded with human specimens. They fight for space, food, or a loving embrace under the microscope of a comically touching director, searching for a theme.

biography

Pavel Blumenfeld (1914–1981) began his career after World War II at Krátký film, where he shot reports and feature films. From the 1950s onwards, he made a name for himself as a dubbing director. He made his debut with the feature film Malý partyzán (The Little Partisan, 1950), followed by the documentary, Emil Zátopek (1954), and the feature films Křižovatky (Crossroads, 1959) and Lidé jako ty (People Like You, 1960). He collaborated on the screenplay for Karel Kachyňa’s Smrt mouchy (Death of a Fly, 1976).