A mother walks through war's aftermath for one bag of sugar. Devastation never tasted so bitter.
A TV film based on Karol Horák's novel. The story takes place in southern Gemer in the spring of 1945. It covers several days in the first months after the war. Matyla, a simple village woman, sets out into the world to get sugar for her daughter and her unborn child. A film about a mother, which is a testimony about people and an era from the perspective of the current middle generation.
Acting
Milena Dvorská carries generational grief in every exhausted step.
Direction
Párnický finds epic scope in a single village woman's journey.
Director
Stanislav Párnický
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Gemer region's specific WWII trauma—Hungarian occupation, Soviet 'liberation,' ethnic displacement—rarely depicted in Western cinema.
Karol Horák's novel was banned until 1968; this adaptation came during brief Czechoslovak normalization thaw.
XC
