The Strike
The Strike, Karel Steklý, Czechoslovakia 1947
Print source: Národní filmový archiv (National Film Archive), Prague
Running time: 77 minutes
About the print
The print is in very good condition. It was deposited with the National Film Archive at some point before 1952, and is probably the print of Siréna that was screened in 1947 at the 8th Venice International Film Festival where the film won the Grand International Award. Shrinkage: 0.8–0.95%
About the film
“We greatly admired this picture, which resembles Carol Reed’s film about the lives of Welsh miners, The Stars Look Down. This is that film’s Czech counterpart, so to speak—a dignified and an even more brilliant counterpart, with its proletarian story about the working-class Hudcový family. It is an intense, extensively detailed, and often riveting picture about the bitter cycle of existence for the poor, a picture of misery and grief, warmed only by the rays of human love and hardened by the hate that compels one to clench their fists and come to blows—perhaps even wrongly.”
– Jan Žalman, Kino, May 9, 1947
Preceding Siréna:
Žhavý jícen
Hot Throat, Jiří Lehovec, Czechoslovakia 1939
Print source: Národní filmový archiv (National Film Archive), Prague
Running time: 12 minutes
About the print: The National Film Archive received this nitrate print from the estate of the film’s director in March 2004. The print is in excellent condition. Shrinkage: 1.3%
About the film: An industrial short produced by Pražská železářská společnost (Prague Ironworks Company) in 1939, the film contains footage from the shorts Výroba oceli (Steel Production, 1939)—today presumed lost—and Poklady země (Treasures of the Earth, 1939), both directed by Karel Kohout.