FILM LECTURE - ECSTASY WITH THE RAT KING

We would like to invite you to the film lecture Ecstasy with the Rat King, which will take place on Friday 23 May 2025 at 20:00, in building 14|15 BAŤŮV INSTITUT (hall A), as part of the Gallery and Museum Night in Zlín.

Entrance at your own risk, not suitable for epileptics.
Entrance to the programme is also possible during the lecture.

The Rat King and Film Ecstasy. 
A beautiful film world full of mice, ecstasy and altered states of consciousness.

A special German edition focusing on the motif of mice, especially “German mice” in cinematic art, by E.T. A. Hoffmann to Werner Herzog, Jörg Buttgereit and Dario Argento. Concepts and works such as The Pied Piper, The Pied Piper's Diary, The Pit and the Pendulum (Hope), Der Todesking, Inferno, etc. In the 16th century, the term Rattenkönig appeared, known in English as Rat King, in French as roi des rats or rouet de rats, i.e. rat wheel. The Swiss naturalist Conrad Gesner, in his Historia animalium (1551-1558), said, “Some would think that the rat grows mightily in old age and is fed on its young: this is called the rat king.” The theologian Martin Luther declared, “Here at last is the pope, the rat king right at the top.”

The show is hosted and selected by film critic and historian Mgr. Martin Jiroušek.