Birds, Orphans and the Blissful

A surreal tragicomedy about three friends who grew up amid the ruins of war and refused to live by the rules of the adult world.

Yorik, Marta, and Andrey are postwar orphans who prefer to create their own reality, where one can endlessly play and love, rather than accept the cruelty and absurdity around them. Their refuge lies in absurd rituals, childish pranks, and vivid fantasies, in which even death and fear are transformed into strange symbolic acts.

Birds, Orphans, and the Blissful is one of the boldest films of the Czechoslovak New Wave, directed by Juraj Jakubisko shortly after the Prague Spring—a kaleidoscope of grotesque, poetry, and madness. The film is celebrated for its fearless combination of ugliness and beauty, humor and tragedy, honestly conveying the experience of those who survived but never managed to become “normal” in the post-catastrophe world.