Distant Journey

Prague, during the war. Hana Kaufmann, a Jewish ophthalmologist, marries Antonín Bureš, a Christian colleague. When her family is sent to Theresienstadt, their story turns into a struggle to stay alive. It was Alfréd Radok’s first film and the subject was his own: as a man of half-Jewish descent he spent the end of the war in a labour camp, most of his relatives disappeared in the camps, and his co-writer Erik Kolár had been held in Theresienstadt. The film weaves fiction together with documentary footage. It was shown on 3 June 1949, then, accused of formalism and of Zionism, was pushed out to provincial cinemas and finally withdrawn from circulation altogether. Its official premiere could not be held until 1997, in Prague.