! 1
Jindřiška Bláhová, National, Socialist, Global: The Changing Roles of the
Czechoslovak Film Festival, 1946–1956,
In: Karl, Lars und Skopal, Pavel (eds): Film Industry and Cultural Policy in DDR und
Czechoslovakia, 1945-1960. New York: Berghahn Books (forthcoming 2013)
It took only six weeks in the spring of 1946 to establish a film festival in the
Czechoslovak towns of Mariánské Lázně and Karlovy Vary (hereafter Karlovy Vary
International Film Festival or KVIFF) and to beat, at least symbolically, to the punch
the festival in Cannes that took place in September.1
The swift execution of this
operation reflects the festival’s significance of its organizers: the Communistcontrolled
Ministry of Information and the Czechoslovak Film Monopoly (hereafter
Monopoly or CFM), a state-run vertically integrated organization controlling film
production, distribution and exhibition in the country. Czechoslovak political and
cultural elites deemed the festival important because it promised to play a key role in
the development of the country’s film industry and to contribute to articulations of
national identity that had been afforded additional importance in light of the recent
Nazi occupation of the country. Crucially, the festival was envisaged as an institution
with an international presence based not only on regional projections of Czech
national identity but on its capacity to assist in the Czechoslovak government’s desire
to see the national film industry become an internationally respected and prolific
producer of films. As early as 1947, however, the emphasis of the national
dimensions of the festival had been superseded by the transnational and supranational
interests of the Soviet Union.
Perhaps because the interests and scope of the KVIFF were amorphous and
could not be accommodated by a single concept like the national, perhaps because of
insufficient understanding of relations between the USSR and her “satellites”, or
perhaps because the festival was seen as operating beyond the European festival
circuit, it has remained largely peripheral to historical inquiry.2
The KVIFF
problematized a prevailing national approach, which saw scholars who were writing
about festivals established in Europe after WWII to emphasize the national
dimensions of festivals as well as festivals’ relationships to national governmental
policies (see Fehrenbach), and challenged the East/West dichotomy shaping histories
of Cold War European cinema. However, whereas scholars explored the roles
festivals play with respect to national film industries, national film cultures, and
cultural diplomacy (see Stone 1998: 100–110; Fehrenbach 1995: 234–253),
revisionist historians began fairly recently to reveal the extent to which festivals
function cumulatively as transnational networks supporting various economic
interests, cultural hierarchies, and aesthetic regimes (see De Valck 2007; Elsaesser
2005) and shape imagined communities (Iordanova and Cheung 2010). As a product
of socialist transnational political and ideological frameworks, the KVIFF was unique
among film festivals, embodying, as it did, more than any other festival, oftcompeting
visions of the national and the transnational that characterized intra-East
Bloc dynamics as well as serving the Soviet Union’s global economic and ideological
! 2
agenda. Moreover, although it has been rightly argued that the KVIFF was established
to showcase socialistic film production, such accounts simplify somewhat the reasons
for the festival’s founding while stopping short of offering explanations as to why this
was the case. Considering national aspects of the festival alongside relevant
transnational and supranational forces permits a deeper understanding of the festival’s
roles in disseminating communist ideology and building global socialism. This
approach also allows new light to be shed on its political and economic relationships
to the Czechoslovak film industry, its relationships to other European film festivals
and film cultures (even across the Iron Curtain), and relationships between the Soviet
and Czechoslovak film industries.3
This chapter therefore focuses on how the political
agents behind the KVIFF conceptualized the festival and sought to covey to the public
its changing cultural and political functions, arguing that the festival became a
shifting signifier due to being shaped by competing national and supranational forces
in the region.
The National Film Festival, 1946–1947
Dances, garden parties, and tennis tournaments accompanied the screenings of nine
films that composed the program of the 1946 inaugural KVIFF. Like in Venice or
later Cannes, the leisure activities were included in order to infuse the festival with
glamour and sense of cosmopolitan vibrancy and to make it attractive to an affluent
international crowd. To boost economically the spa towns in which the festival took
place was, arguably, one of the main reasons the festival was founded. While
economic considerations were important in this respect, issues of national identity
were pivotal and cannot be under-estimated. The first festival was envisaged as a
vehicle for Czechoslovak Governmental policy and as a public relations platform for
the Czechoslovak Film Monopoly.
A key role of the festival was to boost Czechoslovak moral and to cultivate a
sense of Czechoslovak national identity befitting what would be proclaimed as a
strong, independent, and free nation. The festival – as a noteworthy public event –
lent itself ideally to an initiative outlined by the Czechoslovakia government in 1946
in which was detailed a program of political and economical renewal pertaining to
foreign policy, the building of a fairer society, and the quest to refashion
Czechoslovak national identity. Unlike in the period between the two world wars,
when national concerns and nationalism were seen as petty and dangerous, because
they eventually led to militaristic conflicts and film festivals emphasized international
aspects (De Valck 2007: 24), nationalism was again embraced fully after WWII,
particularly in the countries that were occupied by the Nazi Germany and her allies.
Envisaged in strictly national and nationalistic terms, the 1946 festival was expected
to support the agenda of the state and to promote cinematic output that was
considered to express national specificity via articulations of what was deemed
national identity (Brousil 1947). The location of the festival was chosen specifically
for its capacity to enrich nationalistic sentiment by invoking painful recent memories
of the wartime Nazi occupation of the country. Holding the festival close to the
! 3
German border, in the heart of the Sudetenland where pro-Nazi sympathy and
collaboration were prevalent, was a politically significant act rich in nationalist
symbolism (Brož 1946a). Purging the country of a German presence and of any
lasting influence that such a presence may have exerted were pivotal aspects of
Czechoslovak post-war domestic policy. In metaphoric terms, the festival
emblematized the retaking of what was historically the most pro-German region of
the country. The anti-German sentiment prominent in promotion for, and commentary
on, the festival, was perhaps best encapsulated in an article written by a high-ranking
official of the Ministry of Information named Vítězslav Nezval. It read: “We want to
return to our beautiful homeland, which until recently has been ruled by our enemies.
We want to erect a flag of new beauty – the new spirit of our films and of foreign
films” (1946). Echoing domestic policy, the festival’s organizers demanded total deGermanization
and de-Nazification of the region in order that “foreign visitors realize
finally that they are entering Czech lands, not a German province” (Ren 1946).
The festival was conceived as an opportunity for Czechoslovak cinema to be
measured against overseas films. This notion was expressed in the festival’s motto
“To compare Czechoslovak cinema with the cinema of the world” and in the festival’s
name that emphasized that the festival was first and foremost Czechoslovak festival
(i.e. national) with international aspect due to the participation of overseas films.4
The
content and themes of domestically produced films were envisioned as central to the
articulation of the new Czechoslovak national identity. Consequently, Czechoslovak
film officials believed that films made within the nation-state would only be
recognized internationally as “Czechoslovak national cinema” if they were based on
existing cultural products associated with the nation, if they dramatized the nation and
national life, and if they were underpinned by and expressed national values. A
reoccurring theme at the festival therefore concerned what specific features should
characterize Czechoslovak national cinema and thus distinguish it from the cinema of
other nations – in short a quest for an “essence” of Czechoslovak national cinema that
could only manifest fully and unequivocally when Czechoslovak-made films were
contrasted to those produced in other countries. To elevate the conceptual frameworks
within which hey were working, and upon which they were drawing, the festival
organizers drew distinctions between, on the one hand, the national and other
organizing principles, and on the other hand, between different forms the national
took in terms of off-screen and on-screen manifestations. Compared to the national,
found wanting were the blandness of internationalism and cosmopolitanism (both of
which were presented as erasing colourful difference) and the insularity and
parochiality of the provisional (Brousil 1946). Moreover, whereas German national
cinema was criticized for its supposed formal over-elaborateness and an otherwise
unspecified “impurity”, American films were lambasted for their excessive violence,
excessive production costs, onscreen depictions of lavishness, and for distorting
historical and contemporary realities (Kučera 1947). The only way to international
recognition of Czechoslovak cinema was to remain strictly national in a sense of
topics, depiction of “typical Czechoslovak citizen”, and focus on contemporary social
events and people’s activities; the “national” that had been discredited during the
! 4
interwar period should be rehabilitated as a symbol of national greatness (Nezval
1946).
In 1946, patriotism was cast primarily in terms of one’s responsibility to assist
in the building of new Czechoslovak state; filmmakers were expected to participate in
this process (Filmoví novináři o československém filmu 1946: 5), particularly by
exploring and depicting working class and its involvement in the industry and
agriculture (Nezval 1946). Accordingly, rather than handing out awards for individual
films, the festival celebrated hard work and the institutional activities conducted by
the Monopoly (Brož 1946b). The notion of hard work and building of a new society
with the help of cinema connected the festival directly to the Czechoslovak national
economy (Brejcha 1947). The festival was envisaged as a part of the system of
planned economy being introduced to Czechoslovakia. The long-term statesupervised
planning of production of films (two or five years) was expected to
generate sustainable economic growth, which would – unlike purely profit-driven
private enterprises – take into account the needs of society as a whole. The
monopoly’s officials anticipated that the output of the Czechoslovak film industry
would increase fivefold by 1953, resulting in the production of up to 52 films.5
As a
result, the monopoly would supply sufficient Czechoslovak films to guarantee a solid
contribution to the reshaping of the national character and to ensure that the festival
itself was seen to be central to that process. However, by 1949 it became apparent that
the Czechoslovak film industry was unable to meet its production quota due to
economic and organizational crises within the industry, which culminated in when
only eight feature films being produced in 1951, even fewer than had been made in
1946 (Havelka 1972: 80).
A second key function of the 1946 festival was to serve as a public relations
exercise in which would be celebrate the state-controlled film industry and the
principles on which it was based.6
. The festival was therefore timed to mark the first
anniversary of the founding of the CFM. The Monopoly represented a new economic
model that was not governed by free-market economics or controlled by profitoriented
private entrepreneurs. Instead, it was heralded as an institution that would
respond to the cultural and political needs of the state and the people. Following this
line of logic, it would produce films that were of a superior quality – artistically and
content-wise – to those produced by private film industries (Kučera 1947). The
Monopoly was seen as imperative for building a new, socially just society that was
believed to replace the outdated capitalist systems, the failure of which was said to
have been demonstrated by the outburst of WWII. As a pioneering model, the
Czechoslovak Film Monopoly was seen to offer potential inspiration to other
governments, which would dismantle private enterprise in favour of a centralized
state-controlled model. This perception of the film industry originated from the
prevailing political climate of Czechoslovakia, wherein many political and cultural
elites believed that Czechoslovakia was destined to blaze the trail for other countries
because of what they saw as its projection of social and political systems which
merged selected principles of capitalist democracy with a degree of social justice that
capitalism otherwise prevented (Štrych 1947; see Kusák 1998: 150). Because of “the
! 5
cultural and political maturity of the Czechoslovak people, their progressive aims and
their responsibility for true democracy” Czechoslovakia was, according to one of the
leading film journalists, whose position was shared by many other cultural and
political elites, poised to become “an important cultural and political centre of the
world” (Patera 1947a). Accordingly, central to the festival were a series of lectures
and debates in which Czechoslovak journalists, academics, film theoreticians, and
filmmakers explored the principles and advantages of the state-controlled film
industry, especially its social responsibility, political consciousness, economic
frugality and educational value. (Filmoví novináři o československém filmu 1946).
Those lectures and debates were intended for the eyes of Czechoslovak and overseas
visitors alike, particularly those of foreign journalists who, it was hoped, would
propagate the film monopoly overseas, and, in doing so, alleviate the scepticism of
Western political and business elites (Zahraniční novináři na festivalu 1947: 1); a
scepticism which, it was feared, would endanger the Czechoslovak government’s and
the Monopoly’s plans to built a strong and internationally respected national film
industry. With Soviet influence in the region growing, as early as 1947, however, the
festival began to be used to advocate interests, not only of the CFM, but the collective
interests of all Eastern European film cinemas/industries.
All Slavs Belong Together
From National to Slavic Film Festival, 1947
The 1947 festival represented an evolutionary stage from a “national” to a
“socialistic” vision of the film festival. It was shaped by the notion of Slavism, a
cornerstone of which was cooperation between the Eastern European Slavic countries
of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and, symptomatically for
opportunistic policy of the USSR also non-Slavic Hungary. Accordingly, the principal
role of the 1947 festival was the advancement of cooperation between Slavic nations
and their respective cinemas – under the guidance of the Soviet Union (Brousil 1947).
Slavism reflected Moscow’s foreign policy (Kusák 1998: 147–153), wherein Slavic
cooperation was seen to cement the Soviet dominance in the region and to propagate
Soviet leadership. Placing emphasis on intrinsic and longstanding character of Slavic
belonging helped to mask and to naturalize Moscow’s expansionist agenda, which
sought to impose upon Eastern European countries a single political, social, and
economic model.
As a prominent cultural event in the region, the festival provided an ideal
platform upon which to demonstrate Slavic unity in such a way as to resonate
regionally and beyond – particularly in Western Europe and the US. In stark contrast
to the 1946 festival, Polish, Bulgarian and Yugoslavian films were hailed alongside
Czechoslovak films (Patera 1947b: 41; Patera 1947c).7
The artificial, ideological, and
politicised nature of Slavic unity was presented as beneficial for film industries in the
countries united under the banner of Slavism. Slavism, it was argued, would make
them stronger when competing outside of the region. In doing so, it would facilitate
the film industries’ development, both economically and ideologically (Patera 1947a).
! 6
The Czechoslovak film industry, which boasted the most advanced infrastructure, was
to become a centre for the film industries of other Slavic nations and its Barrandov
Film Studios was envisioned as “Slavic Hollywood” (Linhart 1948: 26; Pro
slovanskou spolupráci 1947; Barrandov 1947). Together with the Soviet film
industry, the Monopoly was seen to be capable of assisting those under-developed
film industries in the region by providing them with the opportunity to learn from one
another and by pooling capital resources. The importance of forming a coalition of
Slavic nations was forgrounded in and by a series of meetings and conferences, held
in Prague after the festival, involving film industry officials from Yugoslavia,
Bulgaria, Poland, the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia (Porady v Praze 1947).
The valorization of Slavism affected considerably the ways in which both
Czechoslovak cinema and the Monopoly have been framed in Czechoslovak history,
and how they have been understood as contributing to the development of a new
Czechoslovak society and national identity. The concept of Slavism was employed to
overshadow the nationalistic dimension of Czechoslovak cinema, which, in rhetorical
terms, became a mere derivation of much general and valid concept of “borderless”,
“supranational” cinema that united Eastern European countries. In other words,
national Czechoslovak cinema was subcategorized into a vision of cinema which
conveniently transcended national borders, which erased national specificity, and
which represented a culturally, artistically, and politically unique Slavic bloc. Such a
concept of cinema was ideally suited to reflect the foreign policy objectives of the
Soviet Union, which were underwritten by trans-regional forces involving East
hemisphere countries with Moscow very much serving as a centre of power and
influence. This conceptual shift preceded the subsuming of “Czechoslovak national
cinema” within the broader category of “socialist” cinema and anticipated the
festival’s role in Soviet cultural and foreign economic policies.
Underpinning cooperation between Slavic nations was an implicit conflict
between the cinemas of Slavic and non-Slavic nations; a conflict which telegraphed a
looming clash between “socialist” and “capitalist” cinema which itself would
characterize the KVIFF in the late 1940s and early 1950s (Průzkum mínění 1947).
Although Slavism was abandoned in Eastern Europe in 1948 following a dispute
between Stalin and the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito, the unity it fostered laid a
foundation for the new role that the festival played following the Communist Coup in
Czechoslovakia in 1948 and the increasing influence of the Soviet Union From 1948,
competition between Slavic and non-Slavic cinemas was radicalized and transformed
into a revolutionary confrontation between two political blocs and two systems –
socialism and capitalism. The shift towards “Slavic values” of 1947 was thus an early
sign of the KVIFF’s transformation into a de facto Soviet film festival in a sense of
prioritizing Moscow plans and policies.
“For a New Man, For Better Humankind”
On the Road to Socialism and Global Dominance, 1948–1949
! 7
The 1948 Communist Coup in Czechoslovakia ushered in a new era in the history of
the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. The festival was recruited to spread socialism
through serving primarily the goals of the cultural policy of the Czechoslovak
Communist Party and through advancing the political and economic interests of the
Soviet Union. The goals of Czechoslovak national cinema were jettisoned in favour of
the goals of “socialist” cinema as a supranational cinematic form conceived to
facilitate Soviet foreign policy and Moscow’s plans for cinematic and economic
expansion.
Before focusing on how competition between national industries characterized
the 1948 and 1949 festivals, explores is necessary to consider the significance of the
formal competition that the festival inaugurated in 1948. Establishing a competition
was not simply a cosmetic change. It carried practical, propagandistic, and symbolic
meanings for the CFM and the Soviet government. Regarding the Czechoslovak Film
Monopoly, symbolically, it marked the end of the process of the Czechoslovak film
industry’s transformation from private enterprise to state-controlled institution (now
represented by a company called Czechoslovak State Film, CSF). The new era of the
Czechoslovak film industry correlated with the era in the festival’s history.
There were also economic incentives for the Monopoly to establish the
competition. The Czechoslovak Film Monopoly understood the festival’s importance
vis-à-vis distribution circuits and international trade. The competition, which was
designed to elevate the KVIFF to the level of Cannes and Venice, was expected to
increase the prestige of the festival’s among overseas producers and distributors; it
was hoped that the receipt of an award from the festival could be turned into a
marketing angle. Increased international trade from the festival was also expected to
provide a solution for one of the Film Monopoly’s acute economic problems: the
dependency on American films, which were deemed as too expensive. From 1947,
Czechoslovak film distribution was undergoing a drastic transformation whereby the
monopoly strove to limit its dependency on American distributors by decreasing the
number of American films in circulation on its national market (Bláhová 2008).
Consequently, the monopoly needed to fill the void left by the removal of American
and other imports, with the festival providing an opportunity to develop relationships
with new suppliers.8
The Soviet Film Monopoly also benefitted from the change in the festival’s
status. From 1948, the Soviet government boycotted festivals in Western Europe on
the grounds of festival organizers’ alleged anti-Soviet sentiments and due to
discrimination said to be practiced against Soviet films. To challenge Cannes, Venice,
and those Western film industries that Moscow had concluded were dominating the
two festivals, the Soviet Ministry of Culture announced plans to establish a Soviet
film festival in Leningrad under the name of The International Festival of Progressive
and Democratic Film Art. The festival was scheduled for August 1948.9
The
Leningrad festival was expected, in the words of the Soviet minister of
Cinematography Ivan Bolshakov, to bring economic and political advantages to the
Soviet film industry by helping to sell Soviet films abroad and, by extension, to
disseminate communist ideology overseas.10
However, the Communist Coup in
! 8
Czechoslovakia presented Moscow with a more economically and strategically
attractive solution – using the pre-existing and conveniently located KVIFF.
Establishing a competition at the KVIFF was essential for Moscow. It was
concluded that, as US-USSR tensions grew, some of the distributors and producers
that Moscow was aiming to attract would boycott the festival that took place in the
Soviet Union. Attending a festival in Czechoslovakia, on the other hand, was as
assumed to be less controversial politically on account of Czechoslovakia’s
democratic past and Prague’s comparatively favourable views on contact with
Western countries. Moreover, awards given by an international (i.e. non-Soviet)
festival would give credit to Soviet films and Soviet cinema thus going some way to
substituting for awards from Cannes and Venice, which the Soviet government
continued to boycott (Vaněk 1949b). Unsurprisingly, in 1949, the Soviet minister of
cinematography Bolshakov referred to the KVIFF as a “new triumph of Soviet
cinema” (V Moskvě odevzdány 1949) – he was not merely referring to the generous
number of awards given to Soviet films.
Reflecting Moscow’s approach to European film festivals as cultural and
political battlegrounds, the KVIFF became an arena of multifaceted politicized
combat. Already envisaged as a challenge to the prestige of Cannes and Venice, the
festival provided a stage upon which competition between socialism and capitalism
could take place in the form of two different concepts of cinema – “socialist”
(Eastern/Soviet) and “capitalist” (Western/American). This confrontation was
conveyed through a number of specific ideological “fights” – a fight for the “new
socialist man”; a fight for cinemas of small nations; and a fight against film “kitsch”.
In short, by abandoning the profit motive that underwrote cinema in capitalist states,
socialist (i.e. state-controlled) cinema was free to serve progressive and educational
roles in socialist societies. Moreover, by virtue of its supposed contribution to the
development of the human race fostering increased levels of compassion, social
responsibility and selflessness, and by its purported promotion of social equality,
socialist cinema was deemed to be superior to capitalist cinema, which, by default,
was ideologically compromised. The ideological inferiority of capitalist cinema was
encapsulated in film the concept of “kitsch”, a category of cultural artefact determined
by its perceived low cultural status and its supposed lack of social relevancy. To draw
a clear line between socialist and capitalist cinemas, films in competition were
selected on a strictly cultural and political bases, both of which were intended to
highlight a film’s social function (Brousil 1948: 31). Czechoslovak Communists
considered Cannes and Venice to be stagnating on account of their organizers
evaluating of films solely on their technical and artistic value (what was seen as a
bourgeois conception of art which emphasized aesthetics over social value, thus
separating the films from everyday life). The IKVIFF, however, saw itself as moving
forwards because it assessed the films’ moral value based on their perceived
contribution to the building of a new society and to the development of the of the
human race (Brousil 1948: 29) freed from, what Czechoslovak press described as, the
“prejudices and superstitions” that exemplified “old” capitalist orders (Kout 1948).
This program of politically and socially relevant cinema therefore made the festival
! 9
superior to its Western counterparts. The fight against kitsch, particularly an
American cinema which, according to the Czechoslovak minister of information and
the Czechoslovak Communist Party’s main ideologue Václav Kopecký “poisoned
audiences” (Ministr Kopecký 1948) because it lacked the kind of educational,
progressive, and political qualities typical of cinema in socialist states (Vaněk 1949a).
Importantly, the notion of the revolutionary fight served to carve for the IFFKV a
distinct niche of alternative film festival model befitting a socialist society. The fight
for a new vision of human race, and a new cinema distinguished the festival clearly
from Cannes and Venice that were denounced by Czechoslovak journalists as first
and foremost markets where films were stripped of their social value and were
reduced to profit and venues in which films were use to perpetuate elitism and
classism based on the virtue of economic, not social, capital. The way Czechoslovak
elites perceived Cannes and Venice is encapsulated in a label used by one journalist to
capture their degenerate state, a result of their emphasis on commerce – “film stock
exchanges” (Kořán 1948; Proč filmový festival 1948). Importantly, long before the
notion of political cinema and political festivals became fashionable in the West
during the 1960s and 1970s (De Valck 2007: 27), the KVIFF offered a new model of
the festival that saw films as political and that advanced political agendas.
To accelerate the clash between the two opposing forms of cinema and, by
extension, two associated opposing political systems, the Kremlin mobilized an issue
preoccupying European governments’ after WWII – the question of the American
film industry’s alleged threat to the indigenous film cultures and film industries of
Europe (see Elwood and Kroes 1994; Nowell-Smith and Ricci 1998). Those European
cultural and political representatives that perceived the presence of American films on
European markets in negative terms believed that the economic power of the
American film industry was such that it could dictate conditions of film trade to
European countries and thus flood European markets and festivals with, what were
seen as inferior films. Helpless in the face of Hollywood’s economic might and the
backing it received from the US government, festivals in Western Europe were
reduced, in the words of the Czechoslovak Communist Party’s official newspaper
Rudé právo, to “meaningless film fairs where capitalist producers of film trash try to
cover up […] the deep decay and decline of bourgeois film production” (Vaněk
1950). The economic might of the American film industry affected what films were
shown at the festivals, which film industries were given preferential treatment and
which industries, producers, and distributors were overlooked, discriminated against,
or prevented from taking part. Due to local government’s being often dependent on
US governmental help and indigenous markets on Hollywood import, Hollywood was
seen as possessing the power to interfere with festival organizers’ decisions which
films, for instance include to the competition and which not. Hollywood’s dominance
excluded films made by less powerful film industries (Pfn 1949). Those statements
clearly echoed the complaints of the Soviet ministry of cinematography, which stated
that particularly Cannes discriminated against Soviet films because its organizers
wanted to keep on good terms with American producers and distributors (mainly with
! 10
the Motion Picture Association of America that represented major Hollywood
companies).
The KVIFF intended to solve this inequality by providing a safe haven to
those film industries that were struggling as a consequence of the American film
industry’s international reach (bž 1948; Patera 1947c). It announced egalitarian
systems of participation and film selection, both of which were intended to
encapsulate the supposed classlessness of socialist society. The output of each nation,
irrespective of size, would be represented by a single film. Therefore, preferential
treatment would not be given to productions from particular countries; nor would
films from certain nations be discriminated against, as Czechoslovak and Soviet
officials believed had often happened at Cannes and Venice, where they felt
American films were given preferential treatment (bž [Brož, Jaroslav]:
Československo a filmové festivaly). While film historians showed that from the
outset relations between Hollywood and European cinemas shaped film festivals in
Western Europe, they argued that festivals fought against Hollywood’s dominance but
simultaneously helped to maintain that dominance by their being dependent on
Hollywood stars and films (De Valck 2007: 15, 24). The case of KVIFF qualifies
somewhat the notion of European festivals’ capitulation via-a-vis Hollywood. By
distancing itself from Hollywood, the IFFKV aimed to avoid this dependency and
instead become the last retreat for, what it defined as, “cinemas of small nations” and
help to prevent the American film industry from becoming a dominant power in
Eastern Europe (Výzva k Chaplinovi 1950). Part of this defence strategy was based
on the assumption that the festival could serve as a springboard for the Eastern
European cinemas’ expansion into capitalist markets; an expansion, which it was
believed, would undermine Hollywood’s position thereon.11
Consequently, those
films would also disseminate communist ideology to the West and the rest of the
world via showing “ideals of new life, new democracy, and new socialist order”
(Ministr Kopecký 1948). Exploring role of the 1948 (and 1949) festival thus expands
our understanding of the history of Hollywood in post-war Europe, of relations
between Hollywood and the indigenous film industries of Eastern Europe and,
importantly, the role that Hollywood played as a conceptual category in defining the
identities of Eastern European national cinemas and of Eastern Bloc film cultures.12
Supposed egalitarianism and equality between cinemas notwithstanding,
hierarchies still characterized the relative value of the various socialist cinemas. The
Soviet cinema was elevated above the cinemas of the other socialist states because it
was considered it be the most ideologically advanced cinema based on the USSR
being the birthplace of the socialist revolution. Inadvertently, it was Soviet national
cinema that was celebrated at the festival as setting an example to the cinemas of
other socialist nations including even Czechoslovak. This situation initiated a change
from the previously nationalistic rhetoric that had been employed by the CFM in 1946
and, to some extent, in 1947. Czechoslovak national cinema was no longer seen to be
the product of historical, cultural, and political developments involving a democratic
and independent Czechoslovakia, but was an offshoot of the supposedly pioneering
Soviet cinema. Consequently, Czechoslovak cinema was in debt to developments that
! 11
had unfolded in the Soviet Union. In this line of thinking, the Czechoslovak State
Film was not a consequence institution born out of the decisions taken by
Czechoslovak political and cultural elites (Macháček 1949) – it was symbolically denationalized.
Accordingly, and in contrast to previous years, it was the 30th
anniversary of the Soviet Film Monopoly and not the anniversary of the
Czechoslovak Film Monopoly that was celebrated at the festival (Bor 1949).
The situation at the festival was symptomatic of the situation as a whole in the
Czechoslovak film industry. As Czechoslovak state sovereignty was sacrificed
gradually in favour of the interests of the Soviet Union, so too the CFM came more
dutifully to serve the needs of its Soviet counterpart, by for example, increasing the
number of Soviet films produced at Barrandov film studios or in the international the
distribution of Soviet films.13
Crucially, an escalation in the rhetorical conflict taking place between
Hollywood and some of European cultural and political elites was fuelled by a major
transnational economic factor: Moscow attempted to limit the presence on Eastern
European markets of Hollywood and its product in order to advance its own global
goals of economic, ideological, and cinematic expansion.14
Established business
relations between Eastern European countries and the American film industry had
hampered this expansion. To facilitate this operation, the Kremlin aimed to control
those Eastern European markets that it considered to be potentially lucrative sources
of capital, know-how, and human resources. It was decided that Eastern Europe
would serve as a base for the Soviet expansion first to Western Europe and then, in
the first half of the 1950s, to Asia, Latin America, and Africa (as the next section
shows).15
Highlighting the fight against Hollywood distracted, however, from the fact
that such a policy did not benefit national film industries as was claimed, but
primarily served global the interests of another large film industry – that of the Soviet
Union.
“Fighting For Peace”
International Festival/Global Politics, 1950–1952
While the 1948–1949 festivals were shaped primarily by the consequences of the
Communist Party having seized power in Czechoslovakia, the festivals held in the
period 1950–1952 were affected by geopolitical development, in particular Korean
War, which had started a month before the 1950 festival. In light of these
developments the character and reach of the festival shifted towards the global.16
The 1950 festival turned into a pacifistic global institution characterized by the
participation of not only Eastern European countries but countries from Asia (the
politically hot region) and beyond. China and Korea took part in the festival for the
first time; the word “peace” was added to the festival’s motto; and the festival became
a venue wherein film workers “fought” for world peace and against, according to the
Communist newspaper Rudé právo, “the aggression of Wall Street descendants of
Hitler’s fascism” in Korea (Vaněk 1950). The festival’s global reach under the banner
! 12
of peace was encapsulated neatly in the festival’s poster (Fig. 1). As a popular
medium, films were seen as an effective tool for fighting for global peace based on
their capacity to project to audiences in accessible fashion ideals and political
positions. More importantly, however, the festival served as a site from which film
culture elites (including filmmakers and journalists) could be recruited for the course
of global peace (RP 1950). Delegates from twenty-five countries – including Western
nations such as France, Britain, and the US – discussed how to stop the expansive
politics of Wall Street (Tichý 1950), condemned the House Committee on UnAmerican
Activities, US foreign policy, and castigated Hollywood cinema for
stupefying audiences world-wide and for stimulating the onset of potential WWIII by
being a part of the US military-industrial complex and by spreading propaganda in the
name of its Wall Street financiers (Film v kapitalistických 1950; Slavnostní 1950). As
Czechoslovak newspapers reported, film workers supported the working class and
defended progress, democracy, and freedom (Tomášek 1950).
Fig. 1. 1950 – Global peace as the main star.
! 13
The 1951 festival was, under Soviet tutelage, fashioned as an open political
forum in the vein of the 1950 World Peace Congress in Warsaw and the World Peace
Council in Berlin.17
The Czechoslovak government put forward a proposal to build in
Prague an institution responsible for coordinating progressive filmmakers across the
world.18
New awards were introduced, including the Fighting for Peace Award and
the Friendship among Nations Award.19
The festival concluded with a mass call for
peace, where by the festival was held up as a “humanistic fight for the preservation of
peace” (Havelka 1972: 51). Like in 1947 when Slavism had been an organizing
principle of the festival, and in 1948–1949 when the notion of socialist cinema had
prevailed, the Soviet Union mobilized its “fight for global peace” to advance its own
geopolitical agenda. Film workers from around the world were radicalized politically
under the flag of “peace” and cooperation.
The festival had fitted in the geopolitical plans of the Soviets by serving as a
location in which Moscow could cultivate relations with third world countries in order
to increase its economic and political power. New countries were recruited at the
festival for the socialist cause and, consequently, ideas and ideals of Communism
were disseminated.20
Symptomatic of the Soviet government’s plans to extend its
reach globally, increasing numbers of Asian, Latin American, and Africa, nations
boasting developing film industries were invited to the festival so that representatives
could learn from their Soviet colleagues the creative and business sides of film (-s
1950). To secure attract representatives of such industries, the export office of the
Soviet Film Monopoly – Sovexportfilm – supervised their film exportation practices s
and served as a middleman between Czechoslovakia and those national film industries
looking to participate in the festival.21
Historians have shown that Communist
governments saw film as an ideal medium with which to spread communist ideas.
Even more important, in this respect, however, was cinema’s assumed quality of
creating unity among the various members of a given film culture. This quality was
seen to facilitate and to naturalize the global expansion of the Soviet Union – an
expansion driven by the festival in Czechoslovakia.
Emancipating the Festival
International Festival/National Interests
(With no festivals held in 1953 and 1955), the Czechoslovak government felt in 1954
that the time was right for the transformation of the festival from an ideological arena
benefitting the Soviet Union into an economic platform that benefitted the
Czechoslovak Film Monopoly. Opportunity presented itself in 1953 when, within a
few short months, the Korean War ended, Joseph Stalin and Czechoslovak
Communist Party leader Klement Gottwald both died, and the Soviet government
began to loosen its control over the festival amid signs that the waning of US–USSR
Cold War antagonisms invited alterations to Soviet foreign and cultural policy.
The Czechoslovak government had recognized the festival’s true economic
potential and cultural value. In 1953, the Monopoly faced an economic crisis, which
! 14
had been caused by the implementation of economic models imposed on the
Czechoslovak economy by Moscow, which, because it was poorly suitable to the
dynamics of industry in Czechoslovakia, had led to a drastic decline in film
production and seen moviegoing plummet. The festival was seen as part of a solution
to the Monopoly’s problem, wherein it would provide an opportunity to re-establish
business relations with foreign producers and distributors and to increase the trade in
films22
needed to energize Czechoslovakia’s struggling distribution circuit. To
facilitate such a transformation of the festival, the Czechoslovak government
increased the festival’s budget while festival organizers invited a record number of 45
countries to participate and emphasized the festival’s new cosmopolitan character.23
Even though organizers initially evoked the “evil spirit” of the Western imperialists –
accusing imperialists of trying to sabotage the event – the festival’s profile was more
relaxed in terms of atmosphere and rules, and less overtly politicized than it had been
in previous years.24
Instead of protesting and holding meetings, actors and directors
signed autographs, courted attention from by-passers (Hrbas 1954; Bor 1954). The
cosmopolitan and international ambitions of the festival were articulated on the pages
of film magazines. Kino, for instance, declared that, referring to the Iron Curtain, that
no curtains should be maintained between Western and Eastern Europe and that,
instead, cultural international flow should be cultivated via the festival (Žalman
1954). To emphasize that the festival’s organizers that were in favour of a united
world not one that was divided politically, ideologically, and economically, the main
festival’s award was symbolically shared by the Soviet film Vernyje druzja (1954)
and the American film The Salt of Earth (1954). Change was also seen in the ways in
which the Czechoslovak press referred to the festival and to western festivals. Cannes
was no longer deemed a “meaningless film fair” where commerce dictated the rules,
but was heralded as an important cultural event in which Czechoslovakia participated
proudly and successfully. Czechoslovak films were also submitted to Venice and the
positive reception that they received signalled to the Czechoslovak government the
(mainly economic) potential of the Czechoslovak film industry’s reintegration into
Western markets (J. H. 1954). Crucially, the Czechoslovak government encouraged
the KVIFF’s inclusion into the group of prominent western film festivals, a step
catalysed by political developments that unfolded in 1955, particularly those
associated with the Geneva Conference.
The Geneva Conference, at which the USA, USSR, France, and Great Britain
governments met for the first time since the onset of the Cold War, opened up the
possibility for cultural cooperation between East and West (Dulles 1955). The
Czechoslovak government responded swiftly. After consulting with Moscow,25
the
CFM applied in October of 1955 to the international association of producers
(Fédération Internationale des Associations de Producteurs de Films)26
for the festival
to be included among internationally recognized competitions, so-called “A” festivals,
which also included Cannes and Venice. The “A” category stood to increase the
prestige of the FFVIV while attracting the participation of capitalist countries and
increasing business opportunities generally.27
Of particular interest (TO WHOM?)
was the prospect of renewing relations with the American film industry, which had
! 15
been suspended in 1951 (Bláhová 2008). To be included among the prestigious
festivals, the KVIFF had to be de-politicized. Accordingly, Social Progress and Work
Awards were dropped, and the word “peace” removed from festival’s motto because
its implied Cannes and Venice did not support peace.28
.29
As a result of these steps,
the Czechoslovak’s government proposal was accepted by the IFFPA and 1956 saw
the festival repacked and hot that films from ten socialist countries as well as thirtythree
capitalist countries including the American, Palme d’Or winning-drama Marty
(1955).30
The KVIFF also adopted rules and procedures its Western counterparts.
Filmmakers from capitalist states were invited to attend by the Czechoslovak
government.31
To increase the quality of competition, each country was permitted to
submit just one film.32
An advanced wide-screen cinema was also purpose-built to
boost the profile of the event.33
The success of the 1956 festival demonstrated that the
KVIFF had the potential to become an integral part of the festival circuit in Europe –
a high profile cultural event and an aspect of the transnational film economy.34
The trend towards freeing the festival of Moscow’s influence in favour of
serving the needs of Czechoslovak Film Monopoly continued in 1957 and 1958
(Havelka 1975: 49). The ambitions of the CFM and its export branch Filmexport
were, however, stifled in 1959. With culture becoming the primary sphere of
competition between the US and the USSR (Cull 2008), the Kremlin established a
film festival in Moscow to facilitate Soviet foreign and cultural policy. Because the
KVIFF represented unwanted competition, Moscow imposed a new rule – only one
international film competition could be held annually in Eastern Europe. This ruling
resulted in both the KVIFF and the new festival taking place every second year for
next three decades. Representatives of the CFM resented Moscow’s decision35
because they felt it had ruined KVIFF’s chances of become one of the world’s major
film festivals on a par with Cannes and Venice.
Conclusion
In the period 1946–1959, the KVVI underwent a series of radical conceptual
transformations – from national film festival, to Slavic, to socialist, to global, and
finally back to being a national film festival in a sense that it represented interests of
the Czechoslovak film industry. The festival started life after WWII, as a
demonstration of the regained political sovereignty of the Czechoslovak state – as a
platform upon which could be articulated a newly recalibrated vision of Czechoslovak
national identity, and as a showcase for the superiority of the state-controlled film
industrial model that reflected the nation’s transition from being a capitalist state to
being a socialist democratic state.
With the growing influence of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, however,
the national character of the festival was overwhelmed by the interests of supranational
state formations – first a Slavic bloc based on assumed and politicized shared
ethnicity, and then by the Eastern Bloc, which was underpinned by shared ideology.
In 1948–1949, the Soviet government used the festival to stage confrontation between
the US and USSR, between Hollywood and the Soviet film industry, and, by
! 16
extension, between socialism and capitalism. Hence, at the end of the 1940s and in the
first half of the 1950s, the festival would serve primarily the global interests – both
ideological and economic – of the Soviet Union.
In this respect, exploring the discourses that orbited the IFFKV’s regarding the
clash between two modes of cinemas and two political and economic systems furthers
our understanding of the role Hollywood played as the “Other” after WWII in
defining identities of national cinemas/profiles of film industries in Eastern Europe
and of socialist cinema as a global concept. It allows us to identify mechanisms that
were employed by film representatives in Eastern Europe to protect local film
industries and national cinema against “expansion” of Hollywood.36
By examining
manifestations of tensions between national/transnational/global that characterized the
IFFKV, this study began to show that when transnational political, cultural, and
economic forces are in motion, festivals, as institutions, can only be understood and
constantly conceptually in flux, as shifting category that defy a sole prism, be it
national, transnational, or global.
Importantly, the study also shed new light on the still largely unexplored
dynamics of relations between the Soviet Union and what is understood to be her
satellites. Thus, it invites further exploration of the relations between the
Czechoslovak and Soviet Film Monopolies that promise to illuminate how precisely
the Soviet Union, as a dominating supra-national force, exercised control over its
satellites within the cultural sphere. In doing so, the scope, mechanisms, and concrete
manifestations of Moscow’s global expansions can be detailed and understood. The
ways those forces shaped the festival during the decades leading to 1989 collapse of
Eastern Bloc and the interaction and competition between IFFKV and Moscow Film
Festival offer only two of multiple avenues for further research on transnational
history of festivals.
! 17
Bibliography
Filmoví novináři o československém filmu, K I. Festivalu filmů v Československu
s mezinárodní účastí. Praha: Československý státní film 1946
‘Zahraniční novináři na festivalu’. 1947. Filmové noviny, 16 August, 1.
‘Pro slovanskou spolupráci’. 1947. Filmové noviny, 16 August, 1.
‘Barrandov, Slovanský Hollywood’. 1947. Filmové noviny, 23 August, 3.
‘Porady v Praze o slovanské filmové spolupráci’. 1947. Filmové noviny, 15
November, 1.
‘Průzkum mínění o letošním festivalu’. 1947. Filmové noviny, 2 August, 6.
‘Proč filmový festival v Mariánských lázních?’. 1948. Obrana lidu, 17 July.
‘Ministr Kopecký o našich festivalech’. 1948. Filmové noviny, 6 August, 2.
‘V Moskvě odevzdány ceny z našeho filmového festivalu’. 1949. Zemědělské noviny,
2 September.
‘Výzva k Chaplinovi, Whylerovi, Wellesovi a dalším mlčícím umělcům’. 1950.
Mladá fronta, 27 July.
‘Film v kapitalistických zemích’. 1950. Práce, 25 July.
‘Slavnostní udělení cen na filmovém festivalu’. 1950. Lidová demokracie, 1 August,
5.
‘Dulles Favors Films for USSR’. 1955. Variety, 2 November, 2 and 55.
Bláhová, J. 2008. ‘Hollywood za železnou oponou: vyjednávání o nové smlouvě o
dovozu hollywoodských filmů do Československa po II. Světové válce’, Iluminace
20(4): 16–62.
________. 2010. ‘A Tough Job for Donald Duck: Czechoslovakia, Hollywood, and
Selling Films behind the Iron Curtain, 1944–1951’, Ph.D. dissertation.
Norwich/Prague: University of East Anglia/Charles University.
Brejcha, B. 1947. ‘Vytváříme tradici festivalu v Mar. Lázních’, Filmové noviny 1, 26
July, 1.
Bor, V. 1949. ‘Za filmovými festivaly’, Kulturní politika 4, 2 September, 3.
________. 1954. ‘Za VIII. MFF v Karlových Varech’, Kino 9, 12 August, 264–267.
Brousil. A. M. 1946. Filmoví novináři o československém filmu, K I. Festivalu filmů
v Československu s mezinárodní účastí. Praha: Československé filmové
nakladatelství, pp. 5–6.
________. 1947. ‘Náš festival’, in II. Filmový festival v ČSR s mezinárodní účastí.
Praha: Československé filmové nakladatelství, pp. 5–6.
________. 1948. ‘Náš přínos do mezinárodních filmových soutěží’, in III.
Mezinárodní filmový festival v Československu. Praha: Československý filmový ústav
1948, pp. 30–32.
Brož, J. 1946a. ‘Festivaly jinde a u nás’, Filmová práce 2, 29 June, 1.
________. 1946b. ‘Festival – tentokrát československý’, Filmová práce 2, 3
August, 1.
bž: [Brož, Jaroslav]. 1948. ‘Československo a filmové festivaly’, Filmové noviny 2, 3
January, 1.
! 18
Cull, N. 2008. The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American
Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945-1989. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni. Press.
Elsaesser, T. 2005. ‘Film Festival Networks: The New Topographies of Cinema in
Europe’, in European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood. Amsterdam:
Amsterdam University Press, pp. 82–107.
De Valck, M. 2007. Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia.
Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Fehrenbach, H. 1995. Cinema in Democritizing Germany: Reconstructing National
Identity after Hitler. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Havelka, J. 1970. Čs. filmové hospodářství 1945-1950. Praha: Český filmový ústav
1970.
________. 1972. Čs. filmové hospodářství 1951-1955. Praha: Československý
filmový ústav.
________. 1975. Čs. filmové hospodářství 1956–1960. Praha: Československý
filmový ústav.
Hrbas, Jiří. 1954. ‘O hrdinech, prostředí a ději festivalových filmů’, Kino, 12 August,
268–270.
Iordanova, D. and Cheung, R. (eds). 2010. Film Festival Yearbook 2: Film Festivals
and Imagined Communities, St. Andrews Film Studies.
J. H. [Hrbas, Jiří]. 1954. ‘Československá kinematografie v mezinárodní soutěži’,
Kino, 15 July, 232.
Kořán, J. 1948. ‘Festival po rubu’, Kino, 25 August, 260–261
Kout, F. 1948. ‘Poslání našeho festivalu’, Filmové noviny, 9 April, 2.
Elwood, D. W. and Kroes, R. (eds). 1994. Hollywood in Europe: Experiences of a
Cultural Hegemony. Amsterdam: VU University Press.
Nowell-Smith, G. and Ricci, S. (eds). 1998. Hollywood and Europe: Economics,
Culture, National Identity: 1945–95. London: BFI.
Kučera, J. 1947. ‘Náš film ve světě’, in II. Filmový festival v ČSR s mezinárodní
účastí. Praha: Československé filmové nakladatelství, pp. 9–10.
Kusák, A. 1998. Kultura a politika v Československu, 1945-1956. Praha: Torst.
Linhart, L. 1948. ‘50 let Československého filmu’, in III. Mezinárodní filmový festival
v Československu. Praha: Československý filmový ústav, pp. 23–27.
Macháček, O. 1949. ‘Československý film k třicetiletí sovětské kinematografie’,
Kino, 25 August, 248.
Moine, C. 2007. ‘Blicke über den Eisernen Vorhang. Die internationalen
Filmfestivals im Kalten Krieg 1945–1968’, in L. Karl (ed), Leinwand zwischen
Tauwetter und Frost. Berlin: Metropol, pp. 256–257.
Nezval, V. 1946. ‘Základní kámen k naší festivalové tradici’, Filmová práce, 3
August, 1.
Patera, R. 1947a. ‘Poslání našeho filmu’, Filmové noviny, 2 August, 1.
________. 1947b. ‘Smysl našeho filmu’, in II. Filmový festival v ČSR s mezinárodní
účastí. Praha: Československé filmové nakladatelství, p. 41.
________. 1947c. ‘Poučení z Mariánských Lázní’, Filmové noviny, 23 August, 1.
Pfn. 1949. ‘Filmový svět hleděl k Mariánským Lázním’, Haló noviny, 14 August.
! 19
Ren, J. 1946. ‘Epilog poněkud místopisný’, in Filmoví novináři o československém
filmu, K I. festivalu filmů v Československu s mezinárodní účastí. Praha:
Československé filmové nakladatelství, pp. 27–28.
RP. 1950. ‘Před V. Mezinárodním filmovým festivalem’, Rudé právo, 12 July, 5.
-s. 1952. ‘Nejmilejší a nejvzácnější hosté’, Kino, 14 August, 328.
Stone, M. S. 1998. The Patron State: Culture and Politics in Fascist Italy. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
Štrych, J. 1947. ‘Národy velké a malé’, Kulturní politika, 25 July, 5.
Tichý, J. 1950. ‘Mezinárodní porady pokrokových filmových pracovníků
v Československu zahájeny’, Mladá fronta, 20 August.
Tomášek, D. 1950. ‘Pátý filmový festival končí’, Zemědělské noviny, 30 July.
Vaněk, K. 1949a. ‘Film v boji o nového člověka’, Rudé právo, 3 July, 4.
________. 1949b. ‘Sovětští filmoví umělci na festivalu v Mariánských Lázních’,
Rudé právo, 31 July, 4.
________. 1950. ‘Film v boji za mír’, Rudé právo, 15 July, 4.
Žalman, J. 1954. ‘Oč jde v Karlových Varech’, Kino, 15 July, 228.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1
In 1946, the festival took place in both cities. Between 1948 and 1950 the festival took place only in Mariánské
Lázně and from 1951 in Karlovy Vary. Zápis: Pracovní schůze III. mezin. film. fest. 4. 5. 1948, p. 2, National
Archive, Prague (hereafter NA), Ministry of Information Files (hereafter MI), box 227 (hereafter k.), inventory
number (hereafter IN) 462. Konečná zpráva hospodářského vedoucího Festivalu československého filmu v Mar.
Lázních a Karlových Varech od 1.–18. 8. 1946, p. 2. NA, MI, k. 227, IN 462.
2
One dominant trend in writing about festivals is a focus on one of western festivals as Cannes and Venice,
scholars focus heavily on niche festivals (activist, post-colonial, gender identity-related…). K. Corless, Cannes:
Inside the World's Premier Film Festival. Faber & Faber, 2007; C. Beauchamp and H. Behar, Hollywood on the
Riviera. William Morrow & Co., 1992; D. Iordanova and R. Cheung (eds), Film Festival Yearbook 2: Film
Festivals and Imagined Communities, St. Andrews Film Studies, 2010.
3
Only few studies so far applied a supra-national perspective on “national” histories of East European countries.
See. J. Bláhová. 2010. A Tough Job for Donald Duck: Hollywood, Czechoslovakia, and Selling Films Behind the
Iron Curtain, 1944–1951. Ph.D dissertation. Norwich/Prague: FTV UEA/FF UK; L. Karl, ‘Zwischen politischem
Ritual und kulturellem Dialog. Die Moskauer Internationalen Filmfestspiele im Kalten Krieg 1959–1971’, in edd.
L. Karl (eds). Leinwand zwischen Tauwetter und Frost, Berlin: Metropol, 2007, 277–298.
4
Konečná zpráva o organizačních a hospodářských výsledcích II. filmového festivalu v Československu
s mezinárodní účastí, konaného ve dnech 2.–17. srpna 1947 v Mariánských Lázních, 6. 12. 1947. NA, f. MI, k.
227, IN 462.
5
Pětiletý plán Československý státní film, 3. 6. 1948, NA, Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee
Archive 19/7 (hereafter ÚV KSČ, f. 19/7), archival unit (hereafter AU) 662.
6
Filmový festival od 1.–15. VIII. 1946 v Mariánských Lázních, 11. 6. 1946. NA, MI, k. 227, IN 462.
7
Dodatek k hospodářské a organisační zprávě II. Filmového festivalu v Československu s mezinárodní účastí,
Praha, 6. 12. 1947, s. 2. NA, MI, k. 227, IN 462.
8
Operations of Motion Picture Export Association in Czechoslovakia. Praha, 28. 12. 1948. National Archives and
Records Administration, College Park II, Maryland, USA (hereafter NARA), Department of States Files (hereafter
RG59), DF1945–1949, 860F.4061 MP/12-2848.
9
Moskva 21. 2. 1948, Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (hereafter RGASPI), fond 17, opis
(hereafter op.) 125, edinica khranenija (hereafter ed. kch). 639, p. 132.
10
Ibid.
11
Hodnocení VIII. Mezinárodního filmového festivalu v Karlových Varech. NA, MI, k. 280, IN 512.
12
On the discursive role that Hollywood played in rhetoric of the Czechoslovak propaganda see Bláhová, J. 2009.
‘No Place for Peace-Mongers: Charlie Chaplin, Monsieur Verdoux (1947), and Czechoslovak Communist
Propaganda’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 29(3): 271–292.
13
Rozbor současného stavu práce celého podniku a zjištění současných nedostatků, 8. 11. 1949, NA, A ÚV KSČ,
Political Bureau 1951–1954, f. 1261/0/26, File 2, AU 11, p. 30. Uspořádání VII. Mezinárodního filmového
festivalu v Karlových Varech, 30. 5. 1952, p. 25. NA, A ÚV KSČ, Political Bureau 1951–1954, f.1261/0/22, File
28, AU 99, point 20g.
14
Zástupce Sovexportfillmu v ČSR Lebeděv Sakontikovi, Praha, 28. 7. 1949, p. 51–52. Russian State Archive of
Literature and Art, Ministry of Cinematography Files 2456 (hereafter RGALI, f. 2456), op. 4, ed. kch. 210.
15
Uspořádání VII. Mezinárodního filmového festivalu v Karlových Varech, v Praze, 27. 5. 1952, NA, A ÚV KSČ,
Political Bureau 1951–1954, f. 1261/0/22, File 28, AU 99, point 20g, p. 25.
! 20
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
16
K zahájení VI. Mezinárodního filmového festivalu v Československu, Václav Kopecký, ministr informací a
osvěty. NA, A ÚV KSČ, f. 100/45, File 3, AU 114.
17
Ibid.
18
VI. Mezinárodní filmový festival Karlovy Vary 1951, p. 3. NA, A ÚV KSČ, f. 19/7, AU 673.
19
Ibid.
20
Návrh na uspořádání XIII. mezinárodního filmového festivalu v Karlových Varech v roce 1962. NA, A ÚV
KSČ, Political Bureau 1954–1962, f. 1261/0/11, File 328, AU 419, point 6.
21
Spol. T/12 – film – VIII. MFF v Karl. Varech Čínské a japonské filmy, 30. 6. 1954. NA, Ministry of Culture
Files (hereafter MK), k. 280, IN 512; ‘Indonéský film na Mezinárodní filmový festival v Karlových Varech’.
1952. Kino, 3 July: 275.
22
Mezinárodní filmový festival a filmové festivaly pracujících v roce 1953, 6. 1. 1953, s. 2. NA, A ÚV KSČ,
Political Bureau 1951–1954, f. 1261/0/22, File 50b, AU 135, point 34.
23
Rozpočet VIII. MFF. NA, MK, k. 280, IN 512.
24
Hodnocení VIII. Mezinárodního filmového festivalu v Karlových Varech. NA, MK, k. 280, IN 512, Folder
MFF KV 1954, 1956.
25
Zpráva o konsultaci návrhu na IX. MFF v Karlových Varech s ministerstvem kultury Sovětského svazu. NA,
Political Bureau 1954–1962, f. 1261/0/11, File 79, AU 97, point 2, p. 9.
26
FIAPF was established in 1949 at the Venice Film Festival to defend its members’ interests on the international
markets. Members were: Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, India, Israel,
Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, UK and the US.
NA, Political Bureau 1954–1962, f. 1261/0/11, File 79, AU 97, point 2, p. 14.
27
Uspořádání IX. Mezinárodního filmového festivalu v Karlových Varech. NA, A ÚV KSČ, Political Bureau
1954–1962, f. 1261/0/11, File 79, AU 97, point 2.
28
Mezinárodní federace sdružení filmových producentů, Řím, 6. 12. 1955, p. 19. NA, A ÚV KSČ, Political
Bureau 1954–1962, f. 1261/0/11, File 117, AU 143, point 15.
29
Návrh na uspořádání IX. mezinárodního filmového festivalu v Karlových Varech. NA, Political Bureau 1954–
1962, f. 1261/0/11, File 79, AU 97, point 2, p. 5.
30
Zpráva o IX. Mezinárodním filmovém festivalu v Karlových Varech a návrh na každoroční uspořádání
mezinárodních filmových festivalů v Karlových Varech, počínaje rokem 1957. NA, Political Bureau 1954–1962, f.
1261/0/11, File 117, AU 143, point 15, p. 5.
31
Kopecký ústřednímu tajemníkovi KSČ Rudolfu Slánskému, 12. 5. 1951. NA, A ÚV KSČ, f. 19/7, AU 673,
Folder 6. Mezinárodní filmový festival. Dopis zahraničního oddělení ČSF Rank Organization, 5. 3. 1956. NA, f.
MK, k. 280, IN 512, Folder Zahr. film MFF K. Vary 1954, 1956.
32
Informativní zpráva o přípravách IX. Mezinárodního filmového festivalu v Karlových Varech. NA, MK, k. 280,
IN 512.
33
Návrh na uspořádání IX. Mezinárodního filmového festivalu v Karlových Varech, 14. února 1956, NA, MK, k.
280, IN 512.
34
Zpráva o IX. Mezinárodním filmovém festivalu.
35
NARA, RG59, DF1955-59, 25. 2. 1959, 849.452/2-2559.
36
J. Bláhová. 2010.