Films A-Z
Citizen Havel - The Candidate, The Stifling
Občan Havel - Kandidát, Dusno
Pavel Koutecký, Miroslav Janek / Czech Republic / 2009 / 56 min.
"Creating a four-hour documentary for television was also Pavel Koutecký's original idea," says Jarmila Poláková, producer of Citizen Havel, which broke attendance records for a Czech documentary. As was the case with the cinema version, this task was taken on after Koutecký's tragic death by director Miroslav Janek with his wife, the editor Tonička Janková. In this version, we see a number of interesting background scenes, which were left out of the cinema edition of the film. These include the former president's trips around the world and the Czech Republic, events connected with the Thank You. Now Leave! (Děkujeme, odejděte) initiative, the crisis at Czech Television, the Prague IMF meeting, the NATO summit and an informal get-together with dissidents whom Havel invited to have some snails with him. In watching many scenes, viewers find themselves saluting Havel's openness and willingness to put his neck on the line. The film also includes a lot of television news footage from the relevant period, which tellingly shows the development of the Czech Republic during Havel's terms of office.
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