HOLUBICE

Sceneggiatura / Screenplay: František Vláčil, Otakar Kirchner, Vladimír Valenta. Tratta da un racconto di / Based on a short story by Otakar Kirchner. Fotografia / Photography: Jan Čuřík. Montaggio / Editing: Miroslav Hájek. Musica / Music: Zdeněk Liška. Suono / Sound: František Fabián. Scenografia / Art Director: Oldřich Bosák, Theodor Pištěk, Jan Koblasa. Costumi / Costume Designer: Theodor Pištěk. Interpreti / Cast: Kateřina Irmanovová, Karel Smyczek, Anna Pitašová, Václav Irmanov, Gustav Püttjer, Hans-Peter Reinecke. Produzione / Produced by: Filmové studio Barrandov.

Hundreds of carrier pigeons are released for long-distance flights in the north of France. On Fehmarn Island in the Baltic sea a group of old sailors and twelve-year-old Susanne are waiting for the return of their pigeons. But the girl’s white dove doesn’t come back, the storm has carried it all the way to Central Europe…

František Vláčil did not direct his first feature film until 1960 at the age of 36. But as soon as the poetic The White Dove was released it put Vláčil’s name on the Czechoslovak and international cinema map as an artist with a strong aesthetic vision, elegant visual style, and an almost architectural approach to storytelling.

František Vláčil
Celebrated screenwriter and director, František Vláčil was born in 1924 in Český Těšín, Czechoslovakia.
One of the key precursors of the Czech New Wave of the 1960s, he is celebrated especially thanks to his medieval epic Marketa Lazarová, considered by many Czech critics to be the greatest Czech film of all time. Vláčil studied art history and aesthetics, and his early works includes puppet animation and documentaries for the Czechoslovak Army. Vláčil’s feature debut came in 1960 with The White Dove. This nearly dialogue-free story of a wheelchair-bound boy and wounded pigeon was very rich in symbolism. He died in 1999 in Prague.

filmografia scelta / selected filmography
1960 Holubice (La colomba bianca / The White Dove) 1967 Marketa Lazarová; Premi / Awards: Mar del Plata FF – Menzione speciale / Special Mention; Faro Island FF – Gran premio della giuria / Grand Jury Prize 1968 Údolí včel (The Valley of the Bees); Premi / Awards: Valladolid IFF – Premio della città di Valladolid / Award of the City of Valladolid 1970 Adelheid; Premi / Awards: Pilsen FF – Martin pescatore d’oro / Golden Kingfisher 1977 Stíny horkého léta (Shadows of a Hot Summer); Premi / Awards: Karlovy Vary FF – Globo di cristallo / Crystal Globe