On 19 May, Soviet films were shown throughout Czechoslovakia as part of the Soviet Film Festival, the first post-war event of this size in the country. The “Moscow” cinema was the festival’s venue, but tens of thousands of spectators could also watch films in parks at specially organised areas in the open air.
The festival opened with a film by Fridrikh Ermler based on the script by Boris Chirskov "The Great Turning Point", accompanied by continuous applause from the audience. The citizens of Prague also warmly welcomed the youth-oriented musical comedy by Sergei Yutkevich "Hello, Moscow!" and other films.
The festival was attended by director Grigory Alexandrov, actors Nikolai Cherkasov, Lyubov Orlova and Rina Zelenaya, among others. Their performances in front of the audience were covered by all newspapers in the country.
Besides a plethora of performances, Soviet artists also visited a porcelain factory in Slovakia, had a boat trip, attended shoe factories in Gottwaldov (formerly Zlín, but renamed in honour of the Czechoslovak communist leader Klement Gottwald) and factories.
Part of the Soviet delegation, including Cherkasov, Orlova and Aleksandrov, stayed in Czechoslovakia to shoot several episodes of the film “Spring”. At the same time, the Soviet-Czechoslovak chess tournament "Moscow-Prague" was held in Prague in which Russian grandmaster Vasily Smyslov, the future world champion, participated.
Soon after the end of the Soviet Film Festival, the government of the Czechoslovak Republic organised the First International Film Festival - the future annual Karlovy Vary IFF.
Nikolai Cherkasov wrote in his memoirs: “Wherever we performed, the widest circles of spectators invariably treated us very cordially, with warm hospitality. This reflected a deep sense of the common culture of the Czechoslovak and Russian peoples, and, mainly, admiration for the feat of the Soviet Army, which had liberated Czechoslovakia from fascist enslavement.”
Source:
Nikolay Cherkasov. Literary heritage. Memories. Letters. M., 1976.
