When The Shop on Main Street (Obchod na korze, 1965) won the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1966, it marked the first ever for Czechoslovakia and the decisive breakthrough in international awareness of the Czechoslovak New Wave. Yet its co-directors, Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos, were not part of the younger generation that emerged from the Prague Film School in the 1960s. Klos had begun his career before the Second World War and Kadár made his debut in 1945. After the success of The Shop on Main Street, they completed only one more film before the Soviet suppression of the Prague Spring brought an end to their partnership. In 1968-69, they shot Touha zvaná Anada (Adriftaka Desire is Called Anada), released in 1971, the only Czechoslovak-US co-production to be shot in the “socialist” era....
