Leaving [closing screening: Havel 90 Festival]

Václav Havel’s only feature film turns a former leader’s reluctant departure into an absurdist comedy of power, vanity, and reinvention.
About this Event

This closing screening concludes the Havel 90 Festival Film Marathon, a three-day exploration of Havel’s relationship with cinema within a four-day celebration of his life, art, and legacy.

Leaving (Odcházení) / dir. Václav Havel / 2011 / comedy, drama / Czechia / Czech with English subtitles / 97 min.

After years in office, former chancellor Vilém Rieger must surrender not only his political authority but also the government villa he has come to regard as home. Surrounded by family, advisers, journalists, and opportunists, he struggles to preserve his dignity as loyalties shift and his successor prepares to take possession.

Adapting his own play, Havel transforms the loss of power into a surreal tragicomedy about identity, attachment, and the distance between professed principles and actual behavior. Echoes of Shakespeare’s King Lear and Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard mingle with political doublespeak, theatrical interruptions, and mischievous humor.

Starring Josef Abrhám and Dagmar Havlová, Leaving fulfilled Havel’s longstanding ambition to direct a film. It brings the marathon to a fitting conclusion: with Havel behind the camera, returning to the absurdities of power on his own artistic terms.

Havel 90 Festival is organized by the Czech Center New York and the Vaclav Havel Center, with support from the Bohemian Benevolent & Literary Association.

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