THE WAY TROUGH THE BLEAK WOODS – remastered version
A balladic story of search and hope on the eve of the First World War
Šumava hides buildings lost in the mountains, the Vydra River, a church, a parish, marshes, a post office, a gold mine and a hermit’s hut. In this environment, the fates of a beautiful girl Anna, a tormented widow, her perpetually drunken husband – the postman – and the dentist Holoubek, who left his native Vienna, are intertwined. As the year progresses, their paths collide, but the summer of 1914 arrives and the war intervenes decisively in the lives of all involved… But the characters’ desires and quests are timeless.
DIRECTOR: Ivan Vojnár
D.O.P.: Jaromír Kačer
EDITOR: Alois Fišárek
SCREENPLAY: Ivan Arsenjev, Jiří Soukup
MUSIC: Irena Havlová, Vojtěch Havel
COSTUME DESIGNER: Jan Tobola
SET DESIGNER: Vladimír Labský
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: Jiří Červený
SOUND DESIGNER: Miroslav Hřebejk
PRODUCERS: Galina Šustová, Čestmír Kopecký
CO-PRODUCER: Galina Šustová – Produkce Gaga SUPPORTED BY: Státní fond ČR pro podporu a rozvoj české kinematografie
REMASTERING: Galina Šustová, Česká televize, i/o post
CAST: Pavel Landovský, Jana Dolanská, Eliška Sirová, Václav Koubek, Jiří Soukup, Matěj Hádek, Terezka Tobolová, Vojtěch Kristen
AWARDS
– Czech Lion 1997 for artistic achievement – Vladimír Labský
– Honorable mention of the Association of Czech Cinematographers – Jaromír Kačer (1998)
– Best Camera Award – New European Talent Festival (Barcelona, 1998)
– Matad’or Prize for Best Feature Film – 20th Noordelijk Film Festival Leeuwarden (Netherlands, 1998)
The film was distributed in the Netherlands (Hollad Netherlandse Film Museum).
Television rights for Germany and France were bought by ZDF/Arte.
“Remastering a new version of the film, by using modern technology, allowed the filmmakers to complete and subsequently present the film as they had originally intended, but technological or financial constraints at the time did not allow this.”
Michal Černý, cinematographer and post-production technologist