Havel Is Taking Holiday

The director Jan Novák lives in the USA nearly all his life. He is the author of a book about Miloš Forman (What Do I Know?) and the Mašín brothers (Still well). Novák took his camera and set out after Václav Havel. But he wasn’t interested in his life, but in one particular journey from Prague to Bratislava in August 1985. The journey took a few days because Havel stopped by at his friend’s like V. Chramostová, E. Kriseová etc. It was this “holiday” that dissident Havel was followed by secret police, twice apprehended and cross-questioned. The director Novák chose this realistic event taking place in a concrete time to show especially the American audience what life of a dissident in the socialistic Czechoslovakia meant. The partner of the screening is Czech Television.