The Ear (4K Restoration)

Co-presented by The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

Banned for decades for its unvarnished depiction of state surveillance, The Ear unfolds over one sleepless night when a couple discovers that “the ear” of the Communist regime is listening in on their every word.

Already on edge in the wake of an ongoing Communist purge, a government official, Ludvik (Radoslav Brzobohatý), and his soused wife, Anna (Jiřina Bohdalová), return home from a political soirée to discover that their keys are missing, their electricity has been cut, and “the ear” of the regime may be listening in on their every word. So begins a long night’s journey into dread as the two of them bicker, booze, and crawl the walls with fear. Could Ludvik be the next party member to disappear? Completed in the uneasy aftermath of the Prague Spring and immediately banned for its unvarnished depiction of state surveillance, Karel Kachyňa’s The Ear—unseen publicly until 1990—compresses an entire police state into one sleepless night, revealing how authoritarian power hides in plain sight, twists perception, and corrodes the fragile boundary between safety and fear.

Part of Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair, a global series presented in partnership with the American Cinematheque.