Catalogue of Czech Television Programmes
Is it possible to diverge from the path of one's fate? This saga, taking place in Northern Bohemia from the sixties to the present, tries to answer this question as it investigates two generations of wanderers. Friends Rufus and Čerčil are united by long years of friendship and by their resistance to all convention and forms of power. They love trains because they provide them with a needed sense of freedom and the promise of the faraway. They also like chatting at train station pubs and cafeterias where, in contrast, they find warmth, security, and forgetting. Both fall in love and have children: Little Gréta and Little Rufus. After Rufus son is born he tries for a time to live the wholesome life of a working family man, while at least getting out of town on weekends. But however hard he tries, his wandering ways and his eternal longing for freedom win out in the end. Čerčil, who in the meantime has fulfilled his dream of traveling to Australia, returns home to his family. Only on the other side of the world did he realize that it is impossible to run away from oneself. In the effort to preserve their legacy of wandering, Rufus and Čerčil betroth their two little ones and confirm the promise with a marriage agreement. Will their descendants carry on their legacy or will they find their own paths?
35mm | 95´ | © 2003
director(s): Ivan Vojnár
producer(s): Czech Television, GAGA, Synergia Film, Studio Virtual, Margo Films Paris, ALEF Film, Media Group/Filmservice Slovakia
scriptwriter(s): Martin Ryšavý
director of photography: Ramunas Greičius
cast: Jiří Schmitzer, Jitka Prosperi, Zdeněk Novák, Petra Poláková, Miroslav Bambušek, Ester Hocke, Lenka Volfová, Josef Vinklář
original language: Czech
subtitles available: English