The Shop on Main Street

"The stunning Czechoslovak picture that knocked us out of our chairs"

The New York Times

Archive - Festival 33
Director: Ján Kadár, Elmar Klos
Czechoslovakia 1965
125 minutes
Slovak, Yiddish
Subtitles in Hebrew, English

An inept Slovak peasant is torn between greed and guilt when the Nazi-backed bosses of his town appoint him “Aryan controller” of an old Jewish widow’s button shop.

Made near the height of Soviet oppression in Czechoslovakia, The Shop on Main Street features intense editing and camera work which won it the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1965. The film fuses humor and tragedy to scathingly explore one cowardly man’s complicity in the horrors of a totalitarian regime.

Filmography: Adrift (1971), Obzalovany (1964), Music from Mars (1955).

Restored Digital Copy

Director Ján Kadár, Elmar Klos
Production Jordan Balurov, Jaromír Lukáš
Script Ladislav Grosman, Ján Kadár, Elmar Klos
Cinematography Vladimír Novotný
Editing Jaromír Janáček, Diana Heringová
Music Zdeněk Liška
Festivals Karlovy Vary
Actors Idá Kaminská, Josef Kroner, František Zvarík, Hana Slivková, Martin Gregor
Source National Film Archive, Prague