Sailors without a boat

A documentary about the Czechoslovak naval voyage and its end

The first Czechoslovak ship went to sea in 1952, and some forty years later the entire Czech naval service ceased to exist.

A functioning and profitable naval fleet with a great crew was acquired in privatisation by the infamous financier Viktor Kožený and by 1998 it was sold off at below cost down to the last ship. Miroslav Kačor searches for former sailors after the sale of the ships and explores their fates after their careers ended.

Through the unique private archives of former sailors, the everyday world on board far from the borders of the communist state is revealed. The documentary also focuses on the period of the fleet’s slow demise and how Czech sailors with excellent professional reputations around the world experienced it.

Film is a memento of one of the many dark corners of Czech privatisation, in the form of the expropriation of functional enterprises and the weakening of the economy.

The story of privatisation is intertwined with the life stories of former seafarers and representatives of the vanishing profession, whose audiovisual depiction preserves elements of a distinctive professional identity, values and relationships at sea.

https://www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/10534821118-namornici-bez-lodi/

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