163 EASTERN EUROPEAN SF CINEMA Ewa Mazierska and Eva Näripea Gender Discourse in Eastern European SF Cinema The body of literature on gender discourse and sexuality in sf cinema is growing constantly (Kuhn; Penley et al.; Melzer, Alien; Pearson et al.; Sharp; Conrad; Janes). This is not surprising as genre and gender are often discussed together. Science fiction is also a means to explore the similarities and boundaries between men and women, because in alien zones and future worlds sex differences are often obliterated, blurred, or contested; men and women are replaced with or accompanied by androids and robots. The vast majority of existing gender studies of sf, however, concern Western films. Equally, the studies of Soviet, Russian, and Eastern European sf cinema tend to neglect its gender aspect, focusing on the relation between the reality represented in the films and external reality, typically regarding the films as either a means to condemn the enemy state (Pospíšil 2008) or criticize one’s own country (Mazierska). This essay fills the gap in gender studies of Eastern European sf film by discussing the representation of men and women in The End of August at the Hotel Ozone [Konec srpna v hotelu Ozón, aka Late August at the Hotel Ozone, hereafter Hotel Ozone] (1967), directed by Jan Schmidt, and Sex Mission [Seksmisja] (1983), directed by Juliusz Machulski. We bring them together because they both portray post-apocalyptic futures in which men are almost absent and women take center stage. We want to explore what, in the view of the films’s authors, happens to women and the world at large when they are deprived of male company. Equally significant, however, are the differences between the films. They are directed, respectively, by Czech and Polish directors and were made in different periods of the postwar history of their countries. Hotel Ozone is part of the Czech New Wave (1963-68), regarded as the highest point in Czech postwar film history (Lovejoy, “Military” 430). It coincided with and was affected by political and cultural liberalization in Czechoslovakia, leading to the Prague Spring of 1968, an attempt to create a more democratic version of socialism. The Czech New Wave was marked by broaching subjects previously omitted, most importantly the struggle to achieve personal self-fulfillment in socialist reality, and by stylistic experimentation, such as mixing documentary with fiction and live action with animation (see Hames). Sex Mission belongs to Polish cinema in the period of post-martial law, when an attempt to overcome the political order by the Solidarity movement was thwarted, albeit temporarily. This period is marked by an upsurge of genre films, often with a high dose of eroticism or even sexual violence, interpreted either as a means to shift the audience’s attention from political conflicts or to articulate these conflicts using sex and violence as metaphors for the status quo. The drive toward genre cinema should also