Film Archive

Lost Holiday

Documentary Films - Competition 2007 / Ztracená dovolená / Czech Republic 2007

A gripping documentary detective story by Lucie Králová which records the story of an adventurous search for seven unidentified Asians and thus tries to find out whether someone can be traced in today’s interconnected world merely through his lost photographs.

Synopsis

In 2001 a Czech traveller called Láďa found a suitcase in Sweden only containing 22 carefully wrapped rolls of negative film. When he developed them back in Prague, he discovered they contained 756 photographs of seven unidentified Asians on a trip through Scandinavia. Documentary filmmaker Lucie Králová and her team decided to find out whether it was possible, in today’s interconnected world, to trace someone merely from his lost photographs. An exhibition of these photographs in Prague’s Mánes gallery was followed by visits to see Asians living in Prague, sinologists, crime experts, fortune-tellers, then by classified ads in the German press and long journeys to the places where these unidentified Asians took snaps of themselves. After a several-month-long search, however, the “film detective unit” could only discover that this was a group of Chinese people, probably government officials. Their last hope is the chance that their report will be shown on China’s central television channel, CCTV. Lucie Králová’s gripping documentary detective story is not merely a record of an adventurous mission, but it also asks questions about the testimonial power of photography.

About the film

84 min / Color, 35 mm
World premiere
Director Lucie Králová / Screenplay Lucie Králová / Dir. of Photography Tomáš Stanek, Braňo Pažitka / Music Petra Gavlasová / Editor Jakub Hejna / Producer Martin Řezníček / Production DOCUfilm Praha / Contact DOCUfilm Praha / Distributor Asociace českých filmových klubů
www: www.lostholiday.com

About the director

Lucie Králová (b. 1978) studied at the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, and she is currently completing her course at the documentary film department of Prague’s FAMU. Her films The Ill-Fated Child (Zlopověstné dítě, 2003, co-director Miloslav Novák) and Sold (Prodáno, 2005) won the Czech Documentary Film of the Year at the IFDF in Jihlava. Selected filmography: Normal Tony Dvořák and the Others (Normální Tonda Dvořák a ti druzí, 2001), Überzwerg – Superdwarf (Überzwerg – Nadtrpaslík, 2003), Aqua fosilot medica (2004), The Children of Hartmanice (Děti z Hartmanic, 2004) and Lost Holiday (2007).