For Freedom

Paľo Bielik / Czechoslovakia / 1945 / Czech Premiere / 17 min.

synopsis

An authentic “documentary of the heroic struggle of the Slovak nation against German domination”, whose materials were recycled by all of the later films about the Uprising.

The first, and for a long time the last, film documenting in a relatively balanced, historically correct, and in a sharp cut, still charged with the energy of the resistance, the events of the Slovak National Uprising. Paľo Bielik and his colleagues (Karol Krška, Jaroslav Plavec, Alexander Sekula, Václav Richter) participated in the SNP themselves. The film is partly edited from authentic materials, supplemented by documentary footage, showing all of the components of the resistance: mainly the army, but also the participation of the population in the uprising, partisan groups..., also the later persecutions: burnt villages and mass graves.

biography

Paľo Bielik (1910–1983)
The most successful embodiment of Janosik to this day, also a founding figure of Slovak film directing activities – the author of Wolves’ Lairs and Captain Dabac decided to pursue a career as a director in 1942, after a few years of acting at the National Theatre. In Nástup, he made approximately a dozen documentaries, some of which already bear his dashing “boyish” writing style.