Life Grows on Ruins....

Ján Kadár / Czechoslovakia / 1945 / Czech Premiere / 19 min.

synopsis

A film dedicated to the reconstruction of a country devastated by war, its building enthusiasm, and faith in a better future.

The film debut of Ján Kadár, who will move to the Czech Republic in a couple of years, is a kind of visual audit of war damage. It shows a country devastated by the war, Nazi destruction, and the passage of the front through the countryside: burnt villages, bombed-out factories, liquidated infrastructure... In the middle of the film we hear an appeal, and then in the second half we, see the rebuilding of the country, its reconstruction. This genre hybrid film is actually an agitprop, the first building film of Slovak post-war cinema.

biography

Ján Kadár (1918–1979)
Ján Kadár’s Slovak career is relatively short: studies at the School of Arts and Crafts, a stay in a Jewish labour camp, one feature film (the building comedy Katka), and three remarkably mature short films. By the early 1950s, he was already working at Barrandov, in a team with Elmar Klos.