The First Years
Director Joris Ivens
Countries Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Poland
Duration 49 min
Synopsis
The film is composed by three episodes about the new People’s Democracies. The first was shot in Bulgaria in the village of Radilovo, where the main crop is tobacco and the conditions of drought make occupants dependent on rain. Through regional planning and irrigation systems, this dependence will be ended. At the end of the film a child is born, and the final text says: "A child needs twenty years in order to become man. But this one here will know what the future will bring him. He will not depend any longer on the benevolence of the rain". The second episode tells the story of Czech nationalism since Jan Huss, and reconstructs the link between Czech industry, symbolized by the major shoe firm, BATA, and German fascism. The film ends with Gottwald’s speech outlining the first five-year plan. The third episode, structured as a fiction film, follows the story of a music teacher who leaves destroyed Warsaw, where her family has been killed, and travels west to Silesia where she finds a work in a steel factory as a lab assistant.
The film is composed by three episodes about the new People’s Democracies. The first was shot in Bulgaria in the village of Radilovo, where the main crop is tobacco and the conditions of drought make occupants dependent on rain. Through regional planning and irrigation systems, this dependence will be ended. At the end of the film a child is born, and the final text says: "A child needs twenty years in order to become man. But this one here will know what the future will bring him. He will not depend any longer on the benevolence of the rain". The second episode tells the story of Czech nationalism since Jan Huss, and reconstructs the link between Czech industry, symbolized by the major shoe firm, BATA, and German fascism. The film ends with Gottwald’s speech outlining the first five-year plan. The third episode, structured as a fiction film, follows the story of a music teacher who leaves destroyed Warsaw, where her family has been killed, and travels west to Silesia where she finds a work in a steel factory as a lab assistant.