Bye Bye Shanghai
- Genre: Documentary
- Country: Czechia · Argentina
- Runtime: 114 min
Jana Boková, an important Czech exile documentarian living in Argentina, has decided in her latest film to discover what the word exile actually means. Her first stop on her journey from Argentina is Prague, where after forty years she meets her childhood friend, philosopher Václav Bělohradský. Shared memories of leaving Prague, then occupied by armies of "friendly nations," are sensitively interwoven with high-quality archival material. The director also conducts very open conversations in Prague with the somewhat weathered Vlasta Třešňák, who recalls torture during endless interrogations by the StB and the necessity to choose between crime and emigration. In Paris, in turn, poet and translator Petr Král reflects on the mechanisms of totalitarian power and reminds us of the major role that the Prague Spring played in the left-wing thinking of the West. Jana Boková's very personal film, through the fates of several Czech emigrants and the author herself, contemplates various aspects of emigration and arrives at the finding that those who are once uprooted can never take root again. [43. MFF KV 2008]
- Director: Jana Boková
More on: ČSFD
Documentary 36 in the next 30 days →
71cinemaWed 7.10.Pina
69cinemaFri 9.10.NAZA
64cinemaSun 4.10.Whispers in the Woods
63cinemaSun 4.10.Changing Lanes
62cinemaMon 5.10.The Match
62cinemaMon 5.10.Citizen Havel
62cinemaSat 10.10.Better Go Mad in the Wild
62cinemaMon 12.10.Venice: Infinitely Avant-Garde
61cinemaSun 4.10.Lone wolf
61cinemaTue 13.10.Putin's Witnesses
58cinemaSun 25.10.What Happened to Kerouac?
57cinemaMon 12.10.The State CaptureTrailer
Starring
About
Jana Boková is a Czech documentary filmmaker who emigrated in 1968 and built her career primarily in the United Kingdom. She directed numerous documentaries for the BBC and other international broadcasters, exploring cultural and social themes from around the world.
Václav Bělohradský is a Czech philosopher and sociologist who emigrated to Italy after the 1968 Soviet invasion and taught for many years at the University of Genoa. He is known for his essays on modernity, totalitarianism, and European political culture. After 1989 he returned to the Czech Republic and has been affil…
Vlastimil Třešňák is a Czech singer-songwriter, poet and writer. During the communist normalization era he was persecuted by the secret police (StB), imprisoned, and eventually emigrated. His songs and literary work are closely tied to themes of freedom and resistance to totalitarianism.
Petr Král (1941–2020) was a Czech poet, essayist and translator who spent much of his life in exile in Paris. He wrote in both Czech and French, with a focus on surrealism and film criticism. He is known for his poetry collections and essays on culture and totalitarian power.
TMDB · Movie data by TMDB. This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.