TURISTOU VE VLASTNÍM DOMĚ/BEING A TOURIST AT HOME
Czech Republic, 2009, 38 min
Jaroslava Bagdasarová
29.01.2011 17:55
In the far, far North, where the day begins and the oceans meet, a small hamlet New Chaplino is situated. The goverment decided to turn the village into a tourist resort. It is winter, 30 degrees Celsius below zero. The tourists are not coming. There are only few memories of them and the snow has already covered their footprints. The village people live in the cardoard houses. They are waiting for the tourists and dancing. It is only Vika, their country fellow, who is coming to visit her native village after she has spent few years in the city. Thus all villagers keep waiting for the tourists and dancing...
Director: Jaroslava Bagdasarova
The Director Jaroslava Bagdasarova was born in Martin, Slovakia. She graduated in social anthropology at St.Peterburg State University, Russia and in documentary cinema at FAMU, Prague, Czech republic. She is currently working at the research institute in Halle/Saale, Germany.
Production: Pavla Kubečková Company, FAMU Smetanovo náb.2, Praha 1, Czech Republic
Camera: Georgij Bagdasarov
Edit: Libor Alexa
Award: Tococu Lisabon 2010 - první cena
language of dialoques: Russain, Chukchi
Language of subtitles: Czech, English
This documentary film is an insight into the lives of eight Czech families or individuals living permanently in Sweden. What has this country given them or taken away? What are their views on leaving Czechoslovakia and living in the North after forty years? How do they and their children who were born here perceive Sweden and the Swedish society? The film does not only peek inside the Czech families but also reveals the atmosphere of Swedish towns and villages and tinges everything with original Czech and Swedish music.
Věra Fialová was born at the end of the First World War as the out-of-wedlock child of a Czech woman and a Polish man, a Russian prisoner of war. In an old suitcase she keeps her old letters and pictures from the First and Second World Wars. Her memoirs, accompanied by songs from her family repertoire, capture the "small history" - the life story of an "ordinary woman" against the backgraound of the great historical events of the 20th century.
