Adolf Vojta-Jurný

A young boy’s infatuation with flight is the subject of Vláčil’s poetic, prize-winning early short, made for the Czechoslovak Army’s film unit.

The first part of the "Hussite Revolutionary Trilogy", completed with Jan Žižka (1955) and Proti všem (Against All Odds, 1957). The film captures the period from May 1412 to the summer of 1415, a turbulent time in the Czech Kingdom, during which there were protests in Prague against the sale of "omnipotent indulgences" whose sale throughout the kingdom was announced by Pope John XXIII. The ideological leader of this movement is the preacher Master Jan Hus, whose words, calling for the elimination of church abuses, are listened to in the Bethlehem Chapel by thousands of ordinary Praguers, Czech lords and Queen Sophie, wife of the Czech King Wenceslas IV.

The movie describes proletarian life in the Czech Lands after World War I.

After the battle of Sudoměř the Hussite teaching spreads through the whole country and people start leaving their homes to help build the fortification of Tábor. Prague citizens request help against the army of Zikmund. The Hussite army with Jan Žižka in the lead make their way towards Prague. They fortify themselves on the mountain Vítkov and engage in a bloody battle with Zikmund’s huge army.

The second part of the revolutionary Hussite trilogy takes place in the years 1419-1420.