Finding Courage

The Head of the European Reading Room at the Library of Congress, Grant Harris, opened the screening of documentary director Helena Třeštíková’s Sweet Century (Sladké století) in the Pickford Theater on October 25. The film revealed a portrait of several remarkable Czech women who endured harsh imprisonment under a communist dictatorship which Václav Havel stood against. Their stories of the horrors of communist prisons are intercut with old propaganda films and archival footage. The film won the award for best documentary at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 1998. Director Třeštíková has made more than 50 documentaries in the Czech Republic. Sweet Century shows the women's unyielding courage during the tramatic days of their time as political prisoners. Even in the darkness, they held onto their hope for a better future, becoming friends and sharing their knowledge with each other.