Shoes Full of Water

This episodic film was, among other things, a good opportunity for many artists to stage their directorial debuts. This peculiar take on a well-tested genre fills the frames of Boty plné vody (Shoes Full of Water, 1976), in which veteran director Ivo Toman features alongside two filmmakers just starting out – Karel Kovář and Jaroslav Soukup. Serving as inspiration for the directors’ respective works are three stories by the writer Rudolf Kalčík, all about National Security Corps (SNB) members patrolling the borders of Šumava during the postwar years. Toman was in charge of the film’s overall artistic vision and directed the segment Zelenáči 1945 (The Greenhorns 1945) while Kovář directed Silvestr 1948 (New Year’s Eve 1948) and Soukup the drama Zimní vítr 1951 (Winter Wind 1951), which František Vláčil (when still a novice director) soon adapted for his film Vstup zakázán (No Entrance, 1959).