Code Name: Baletka
In the late 1970s, the former Czechoslovakian Secret Police, the StB started the operation Asanace (Sanitation), that aimed to withdraw the citizenship of lower profile signatories of the CHARTA 77 and consequently leave the country. Among those expelled, was Ivanka Hybner (today LeFevre), who was forced to migrate in 1982 with her husband and three children, having been accepted as political refugees in France, the country where she still lives until today.
In this film, Ivanka tells the story of her life growing up under the oppressive regime in her country, how she got involved with the underground subversive groups, the hardships she went through with her migration process and her recent search to find out why she was person of interest to the secret police, offering a very personal point of view from an anonymous citizen on the Czechoslovakian history in the second half of the 20th century.
In this film, Ivanka tells the story of her life growing up under the oppressive regime in her country, how she got involved with the underground subversive groups, the hardships she went through with her migration process and her recent search to find out why she was person of interest to the secret police, offering a very personal point of view from an anonymous citizen on the Czechoslovakian history in the second half of the 20th century.
Epos
In 1967, photographers Jiří Horák, Rostislav Košťál, František Maršálek and Petr Sikula, together with author Ladislav Plch, formed the group EPOS, first as a documentary photography project, but that would develop into staged photography inspired in fashion shots and new wave cinema from the late 60's and early 70's., becoming a strong portrait of the so called Czechoslovak “Big Beat generation” during the period of normalization after the Warsaw Pact Invasion.
50 years later, the same group of artists reunites to re-enact some of their most representative photographs, returning to the same places and meeting the same people who featured on them, while sharing their memories and stories in the whole process, being a different way to understand life in the artistic underground in the days before the Prague Spring and during normalization and its contrast with modern Czech Republic.
50 years later, the same group of artists reunites to re-enact some of their most representative photographs, returning to the same places and meeting the same people who featured on them, while sharing their memories and stories in the whole process, being a different way to understand life in the artistic underground in the days before the Prague Spring and during normalization and its contrast with modern Czech Republic.