Day after the Long Night

Czech Libuše Audrlická, Barbara Müller, a Pole, and Ukrainian Inna Klimenková were three women out of a total of 13 million people who were employed as forced labour in the Third Reich during the Second World War. For the most part, monotonous work in munitions factories or in agriculture represented 12-hour shifts in difficult conditions. This was exacerbated by the awareness that their work helped support the hated Nazi regime. In his new film, director Tomáš Kudrna not only focused on these women's recollections of their life as labourers for a totalitarian system, but also tried to ascertain how this experience shaped their subsequent fate. While using a large quantity of unique archive materials, family photographs and a disturbing musical score, he composes a vivid portrait of the turbulent destinies of three women whose lives were fundamentally affected by wartime events and forced labour in Nazi Germany.