October 21, 2013 Film Series Features Czech Documentary Films
Press Contact: Audrey Fischer (202) 707-0022
Public Contact: Gail Shirazi (202) 707-9897
Contact: Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ada@loc.gov
Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov
The Library of Congress, in collaboration with the Embassy of the Czech Republic, will present the film series titled “Docs in Salute.”
The series of films produced in the Czech Republic—many with Jewish themes—was launched at the Library of Congress in 2012. The 2013 series will feature four documentaries that will be screened at the Library at noon on Oct. 29, Nov. 4, Nov. 13 and Nov. 18 in the Mary Pickford Theater, located on the third floor of the James Madison Building at 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C.
The series, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored jointly by the Library’s Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division, the Embassy of the Czech Republic and the Hebrew Language Table. The films are in English and Czech with English subtitles. Tickets are not required.
The first three films in the series were produced by documentary filmmaker Helena Třeŝtíková, who will present a selection of her films to the Library of Congress at the Nov. 13 screening. Her film, “Hitler, Stalin, and I” (2001, 56 minutes) will be shown on Oct. 29. The film focuses on the life of Heda Margoliová-Kovalyová, who survived the Nazi concentration camps. Her husband, Rudolph Margolius, who rose to the office of deputy minister of trade in Communist Czechoslovakia following WWII, was executed during the communist purges in the 1950s.
The series continues on Nov. 4 with the screening of Třeŝtíková’s film, “My Lucky Star” (2004, 58 minutes). The film documents the life of Zdenka Fantlová, a woman who survived life in several concentration camps.
“Beyond Words” (2007, 57 minutes), Třeštíková’s film about the mass murder of Czech Jews at the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944, will be shown on Nov. 13.
On Nov. 18, the Library will screen “The Story of the Shipwrecked from the Patria” (2006, 45 minutes). Directed by Pavel Stingl, the film focuses on the Nov. 25, 1940, bombing of a ship carrying about 1,800 Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe to Palestine.
Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution. The Library seeks to spark imagination and creativity and to further human understanding and wisdom by providing access to knowledge through its magnificent collections, programs, publications and exhibitions. Many of the Library’s rich resources can be accessed through its website at www.loc.gov.
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PR 13-183
2013-10-21
ISSN 0731-3527