Catalogue of Czech Television Programmes
The documentary program by Jan Němec acquaints us with the personality and poetry of one of the leading Czech 20th century poets, who spent most of his life in exile. František Listopad was one of the young writers and journalists who occupied the editorial office of the German Prager Tagblatt as soon as the last shots of World War Two died down, and started publishing the daily Mlada Fronta. He founded the artistic trend of “dynamoarchism” and published several anthologies of verse during the early post-war years. Then he became based in Paris as reporter and he was there when the communists took over in February 1948. From being a foreign correspondent, he suddenly became an exile. He remained in France for some time, then moved to Portugal, where he still lives and works. In Portugal he is known as a stage and film director, at home in the Czech Republic as a poet, because he writes and publishes his verse only in Czech, on principle. His name returned to Czech literature only after 1989, when readers first had the opportunity to read the poetry he had written in exile. Jan Němec is also the cinematographer of this film.
SD | 58' | © 2000
director(s): Jan Němec
producer(s): Czech Television, Jan Němec Film
scriptwriter(s): Jan Němec
director of photography: Jan Němec
original language: Czech
subtitles available: English