Strike

This social drama from director Karel Steklý represents a rare example from the period of its making of a Czechoslovak film generating waves on the international scene. The motion picture took the Grand International Award at the 1947 Venice Film Festival. The story is inspired by two chapters of an eponymous novel by Marie Majerová (first published in 1935), and is set in the 19th century industrial town of Kladno. Focusing on the working class Hudec family, Siréna (The Strike) chronicles a strike by miners protesting low pay. But the defiant mine owner turns the gendarmerie against the rebels. When metal workers join their mining colleagues, the boss orders a brutal suppression of the strike. Daughter Emča Hudcová, who is accidentally shot during the plundering of the boss’s villa, serves as a symbol of the struggles of the working classes against the exploitations of capitalism.