HELD AT FAMOUS CZECH SPA

Peace dominant theme of entries
in International Film Festival -

THE THEME of the Seventh
International Film Festival in
Czechoslovakia, July 12 to Au-
gust 3, is finding expression here
at Karlovy Viary in a. variety of
inspiring and creative ways. Of
the 106 entries from 20 coun-
tries represented by over 100 of-
ficial delegates, almost every
film shown in the first half of
the festival ‘would move Cana-
dian viewers to more active par-
ticipation in the struggle for
peace, a deeper understanding
of our own democratic traditions
and aspirations, a more pro-
found love of humanity, and a
broader grasp of the ‘transform-
ing role that art plays in society.

Here are leading film work-
ers from the Soviet Union, Peo-
ple’s China, Korea, India, the
People’s Democracies, the Ger-
man Democratic Republic, Belg-
ium, ‘Britain, France, Italy, Neth-

erlands, Norway, Sweden, Indon--.

esia and Australia, all imbued
with one ideal — how best to
use their creative talent to ad-
vance the struggle for world
peace.

As Czechoslovak Minister of
Information and Culture Vaclav
Kopecky declared in opening the
festival, ‘“‘This is the purpose of
our International Film Festival
at Karlovy Vary. It is dedicat-
ed to the sacred cause of peace.”

The people of Czechoslovakia
are proud that that world-re-
nowned spa, where Beethayen
and Mozart, Goethe and Marx
found rest and relief, not only
provides health and recreation
for its own people and their fra-
ternal neighbors, but for the
seventh successive year has. prov-
ided the world’s film artists with
this unique opportunity to serve
humanity. They are convinced,
as Kopecky expressed it, ‘‘that
_ the message of our festival will
reach the progressive artists of
America as well and will fortify
them in their task to fight, to-

gether with progressive film
workers of all other countries,
for the great social and interna-
tional mission of the cinema in
the cause of peace.”

* * * .

TO COMMENT briefly on my
impressions of some of the films:
Iv can’t imagine any Canadian
seeing the joint Mosfilm-Defa
colored epic of the Berlin Youth
Festival without feeling emotion-
ally enriched and activated by
this brilliant artistic portrayal of
the greatest peace pageant of
our time. Entitled Friendship
Prevails (We Are for Peace); it
is directed by Soviet Stalin Prize
Laureate Ivan Pyrvev, assisted
by Andrew Thorndike (for the
German Democratic Republic‘
and the noted Dutch progressive
producer, Joris Ivens. Over 600
film workers of several lands
participated in its production.
The Canadian youth delegation,
carrying its broad banner, has a

prominent place in the parade

shots.

The Unforgettable Year 1919,
Soviet color-feature film which
opened the festival on July 12,
unfolds the selfless struggle of
the sailors and workers of Pet-
rograd to defend their young
socialist state from the inter-
ventionist armies.

Red Flag Over Green Rock, a
feature film of New China with
great artistic power and realistic
content, discloses through 20
years in the life of a Chinese
peasant family, the unparalleled
heroism and sacrifice that liber-
ated China’s 500 millions from
the Japanese and Kuomintang
yokes. tot

The Polish biographical film,
The Youth of Chopin, based on
the composer’s diary, reveals for
the first time on the screen how
Chopin’s music achieved its pro-
foundly national character, by
his own close link with his peo-
ple and their sufferings and na-

tional aspirations.

_Madame Dery, a- Hungarian
film masterpiece, is based on the
role played by the celebrated
19th century actress and singer
in freeing the Hungarian theatre
from the Germanizing influence
of the Hapsburgs.

The Polish feature film, The
First Days, by portraying the
events connected with restoring
a steel plant to production, pays

etribute to the Polish workers,
after liberation “by” the Red
Army. {Hi ig sae

From the German Democratic
Republic comes’ Women’s Lives,
‘a dramatic film ofthe struggle
of German women for a new life
in contemporary Berlin —’ meet-
ing place of the dying’ old order
and the dawning socialist order.

* * *

CZECHOSLOVAKIA’S ‘famous
puppet films, emerging from the
work of the various traditional
puppet theatres and their fore-
most ‘contemporary leader, Na-
tional Artist’ Josef Skupa, are
. favorites at the festival.

A new and°successful depart-
ure for Czechoslovak state films,
however, is their feature-length
children’s film, The Proud Prin-
cess, a Czech tale classic by Bo-
zena Nefcova. Played by lead-
ing cinema artists, the film
teaches children the value and
dignity of human labor in the
subtle blending of fantasy and
reality and witty characterisa-
tion. af ;

Two of the most dramatic
short documentaries I have seen
were Happy Sinking (China) and
Construction Sites in Moscow
(USSR), both in color, the latter
having the quality of poetry in
its portrayal of the tremendous
building program in Moscow.
Soviet Tadzhikistan is greatly ad-
mired for its artistic expression
of the transformation of a for-
mer desert into a sub-tropical
garden.—LUCILLE GISCOMBE.-

AUSTRALIA MARKS 85th ANNIVERSARY OF GREATEST POET -

‘The city grinds the owners of the faces in

A FAVORITE story told of

Henry La'wson was that he stop-

ped and spat every time he
passed the Sydney Morning Her-
ald office.

If he were alive today he
would be still stopping to spit —
. with greater disgust than ever.

; Lawson. the greatest poet

Australia has yet produced, was
born of poverty stricken parents
in a tent on the Grenfel gold-
field on June 17, 1867.

This is the 85th anniversary
year of Lawson’s| birth, and
there can be no doubt that if he
were alive today - he would be
stirred to pen some of his most
angry lines at the way the Men-
zies government and its Ameri-
¢tan-dictated war policy is ruin-

ing the country he loved so~-

deeply. »
_ He was an ardent champion of
Australian independence from
British or any foreign capital,
and probably the thing that
would rile him most today would
be to see the sickening servility
of the Australian class to its Am-

_ @rican overseers.

Imagine his reactions if he
were back today long enough to
take a ten-minute stroll down
Sydney’s Pitt Street.

One of the first things that
would catch his eye no doubt

would be the magazine display
at a street-corner newstand.
What would be his comment as
he stood and surveyed the row
upon row of gaudy covered Am-
erican magazines and ‘‘comics’’
devoid of all humanity and deal-
ing only with sex, brutality and
sudden death? — : ,

Wihat would be say too as he

‘strolled past the movie theatres

and here also saw the same
sordid evidence of the way Yan-
kee “culture’’ is allowed to dom-
inate Australia — his Australia.

Suddenly, 4 blare of music and
a wailing voice would bring him
up with qa jerk. He would be
standing outside one of those
Yankee-style ‘‘Fun Parlors,” the
juke-box going full blast with
the latest “‘cry’’ crooner.

* a.

PROBABLY after that he
would prefer to walk in silence
for a while alone with his angry
thoughts. wondering what had
happened to the flourishing Aus-
tralian culture he had done so
much to help on its way. His
thoughts would be shattered by
the cry of the newsboy at the
King Street corner.

“America’s “new threat to
bomb China,” the newsboy would
be shouting. He would stop to

buy a paper.

Sprawled across the front page
would be America’s latest arro-
gant threat to make war on
China and drag the whole world
into its crazy plan for a third
world war. *

In the same paper there would
be one of those frank reports of
American big business concerns
that the outbreak of peace would
be “bad for profits.” He would
be quick to get the connection.

Another ‘report that a badly

needed dam is' now! not to be built .

would specially interest Lawson,
With amazement he would read
that the men of the outback must
go on enduring floods, droughts
and bushfires because Menzies
has decreed that money for war
must come first.

With a whimsical smile he
might think back on those bitter

lines he once penned about the
Darling River:

‘The skies are brass and the
plains are bare.

Death and ruin are everywhere—

And all that is left of the last
year’s flood.

Is a sickly stream on the grey-
black mud. :

He might think of those other,
as yet unfulfilled, lines from
“Australian engineers”;

Pride of new Poland

Among the finest of the many impressive new buildings rising
out of the ruins of war-shattered Warsaw is this Palace of Sciene®
and Culture, now under construction. - j “sla

MACLEAN’ MAGAZINE VIEW °

}
t.

Dismissal of six symphony
musicians ‘thought control

“TH ARBITRARY sentence on
the unspecified charge is a stand-
ard device of thought-control
and its dismal running-mate,

' guilt - by - association,” stated

Maclean's magazine in its August
1 issue, commenting editorially
on the firing of six Toronto Sym-
phony Orchestra musicians be-
cause the U.S. Immigration De-
partment refused them permis-
sion to cross the border.

“Tt means,”’ the editorial said,
“that it is possible for a Cana-
dian to lose his job in Canada
through a completely unexplain-
ed administrative ruling of a

They see the dykes to the sky
line,

And they hear the lap of the
waters on the miles of the
sand and clay;

They see the rainfall increasing,
and the bountiful sweeps
Of grass,

And all the year on the rivers
long strings of their barges
pass,

Further down his newspaper’s
page, disturbing reports would
tell him that his ‘“‘Australian en-
gineers,” far from being given
the great jobs he envisaged, are
again threatened with unemploy-
ment queues and breadlines,

Perhaps. here Henry would
look up from his paper to watch
the faces passing him in the
Street and to feel again the anger
that impelled him to write:

The city grinds the owners of
the faces in the street,

' Grinding body, grinding soul,

Yielding scarce enough to eat—
Oh! I sorrow for the owners of
the faces in the street.

By now we would be passing
the Sydney Morning Herald’s
Hunter Street abode, and when

he stopped for his traditional:

-Titual, we would stand and spit

_ rest content that the people

foreign government; and that it
is possible for this to happe?
without the Canadian’s employ-
er either lifting a finger in his
defense or showing the slightest
curiosity about the nature of his
transgressions.”

There was never any questio2
about the capabilities of the si*
musicians, the editorial claimed:
“and it is profoundly disquiet ;
ing,” it concludes, “to find #
great Canadian cultural institu-
tion running in such incongruous
company” as those who practis?
thought-control and guilt-by-a5
sociation.

the street!

with him, ;
x -* *
BUT BEFORE HE took leav®
of us we would assure him that
things were by no means as D

as Menzies and his America?
friends make them look.

We could tell him things tha
would set a smile rising benea
his famoug straggling moustaché
We could tell him how on
sides patriotic Australians 87°
moving into action against th®
strangling of their country’s iD”
dependence and the stifling °
our culture by wealthy Americ
interests, how -ever-increasiD®
numbers of Australians Wel? —
moving into action against AUS —
tralia being used as a base fF
American wars of plunder’ 2?
aggression,

As an old socialist his neart
would quicken as we told him °
how Australia’s path to social
ism through a mighty moveme?
of the people is already cleat 1:
charted by the outstanding 5°
entific socialist thinkers of t#®

Communist Party of Austnali®

Yes, Henry Lawson, we won
say as we took our leave of hi ‘
Australia is As you have writte”’

“a big country” and you
you

loved so much are going t0 oe

big things with it,

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — AUGUST 8, 1952 — PAGE 8