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Bye Bye Shanghai
Comparing making a film about exile to a highly painful but necessary visit to the dentist, Bokova, herself an émigrée, sets out to explore various aspects of emigration, its effect on people’s lives and the impossibility of stepping into the same river twice.
As one of her protagonist says: “You return to your 30s but everyone around you is 60.“ Moving betwen the streets of Prague, Paris and Buenos Aires and talking to a fascinating variety of émigrés such as philosopher Vaclav Belohradsky who left because of the 1968 Soviet Invasion; singer songwriter Vlasta Tresnak, endlessly interrogated and tortured by the state secret police, who had to choose between prison and emigration; poet and translator Petr Kral reflecting upon the mechanism of totalitarian power, Bokova builds a captivating documentary essay about home, the world and staying in those fictious spaces. And about friends.
Czech Republic/Argentina 2008, 114’, English subtitles
UK PREMIERE
Free entry, reservation necessary see link below
Followed by Q&A with Jana Bokova and Henrietta Foster on exile and identity
Film director Jana Bokova has been living between London, Paris and Buenos Aires since 1968 making films in four countries and four languages – English, French, Spanish and Czech. Czech-born Bokova left her home country in 1968 at the time of the Soviet invasion