The Czechoslovakian New Wave flourished in the early 1960s, paving the way for a poetic type of cinema, capable of bringing the best out of great directors such as Věra Chytilová, Jiří Menzel, and Miloš Forman. The style brought a rush of creative freedom to global cinema. Meanwhile, young Communist Jan Procházka was a rising screenwriter and producer. His meteoric rise was intertwined with this cinematographic movement, changing his artistic destiny and the history of the country. https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/100947-000-A/a-czechoslovak-fairy-tale/ "A Czechoslovakian fairy tale" paints a picture of what its narrator calls "damaged cinematography": the extraordinary creative period represented by the Czechoslovak New Wave, illuminated from within by the astonishing trajectory of a man who used his proximity to the instances of power to produce several subversive works. These two stories, one collective, the other individual, have been stopped short. Locked away in tightly padlocked cupboards, the films of the young Czech generation will remain invisible for a long time. As for Jan Prochazka, sacrificed on the altar of Soviet normalization, he was only 42 years old when he died of illness in 1971. His short and courageous career, which bridges two key periods in the history of his country, is told here by his two daughters and several historians. It opens a window onto a cinema of great originality to which this film pays homage through a montage teeming with nuggets, dazzling with visual poetry and freedom.