Bye Bye Shanghai

Colour, DIGIBETA
Czech Republic, Argentina, 2008, 114 min
WP – World premiere
Section: Documentary Films in Competition

Synopsis

Distinguished Czech documentarist Jana Boková, who lives in Argentina, decided for her latest film to find out exactly what the word “exile” means. Her first stop is Prague where, after a period of 40 years, she meets up with a friend from her school days, the philosopher Václav Bělohradský. Their joint recollections of leaving Prague, at that time occupied by “friendly” forces, are deftly woven into high-quality archive footage. She also conducts a frank interview in Prague with the lightly intoxicated Vlasta Třešňák, who remembers his torture during the endless interrogations by the state secret police and the need to choose between prison and emigration. In Paris, poet and translator Petr Král reflects upon the mechanisms of totalitarian power and looks back at the major role the Prague Spring played in Western left-wing thinking. This highly personal film by Jana Boková, examining the lives of several Czech emigrés, including the director herself, considers the various aspects of emigration and reaches the conclusion that, once a person has been uprooted, he can never cultivate his native roots again.

About the director

Jana Boková (b. 1948, Prague), a documentarist of Czech origin, has been living since 1968 in France, Great Britain, the USA and Argentina. She gained a doctorate in the fine arts, specialising in photography and Surrealism. She has also worked as a photographer, e.g. for the magazine Rolling Stone. Select documentary films from her impressive filmography: Just One More War (1977), Marika and Marevna (1977-78), Living Room (1978), I Look Like This (1979), Quinn Running (1980), Dallas: The Big Store (1981), Sunset People (1983), Havana (1989-90), Avignon (1999) and Tango Salon (2004, screened at the KVIFF in 2006). She made the feature films Hôtel du Paradis (1986) and Diary for a Taly (Diario para un cuento, 1998), which was included in the Horizons section at the Karlovy Vary IFF in 1999.