Summary
In 1978, director Štěpán Skalský responded to the contemporary call for films about topical social themes by co-writing a screenplay for an ecological drama titled Čistá řeka (Pure River) with screenwriter Karel Steigerwald. The hero of this accessible film is a newly graduated, idealistic hygienist, Pavel, who encounters gross violations of the regulations in a district town. When he tries to change the situation, the head of the textile factory that is polluting the local river blocks all of his efforts. The resigned protagonist, played attractively by Slovak actor Juraj Ďurdiak, is the prototype of the young hero through whom the creators of films in the era of “normalisation” pointed to selected evils of the times.
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