Vít Soukup - The Silver Trail

Second part of a series: A drama of aging men and the search for one’s place in the sun

AUTHORSHIP

Equal co-authorship: Vít Soukup

CLASSIFICATION

Classification: film/videoart

DATES

Date of creation: 1993

SUBJECT

Other persons appearing in the film: Jan Materna, Adam Hlaváč, Jan Veselý, Vít Soukup, Stanislav Maruška, Jakub Sova, Jan Kučera

COLLABORATORS AND PARTICIPANTS

Other collaborators: Adam Hlaváč

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

Duration: 00:13:24
Sound: Sound

EXHIBITIONS, PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS

Audiovisual broadcast (TV, radio): Artyčok.tv
Date of broadcast: 15.1.2013
Link: http://artycok.tv/lang/cs-cz/17445/stribrnou-stopou-1993
Compilation containing the work: Vít Soukup: Everything!, 2012
Attachment included with work’s publication: booklet CZ/EN

NOTES AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Notes: Included in the compilation Vít Soukup: Everything! Films and Theater Performances 1993–2003 (edited by T. Nekvindová, S. Sobotovičová) - published in 2012 by the Research Centre of Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (VVP AVU) in cooperation with Divus.

Music: Jan Kučera
Title song: Vít Soukup, Jan Materna
Written and directed by: Vít Soukup

Curated in The Window to the VVP AVU Video Archive programme at Artycok.tv in 2012.

Adopted text on the work: A spoof of the Czechoslovakian television series Dobrá voda (1982, dir. František Filip) about a group of horse breeders. In The Silver Trail, set against the backdrop of a snail farm with its champion race snails Slimey and Escargot, we follow the same dramatic story as in the original series: a son’s rebellion against his father, who is “the last honest guy in this place”. The honor of an entire dynasty is at stake, the farm is struggling for survival: firstcomes an external threat in the form of a mafia-like traitor, and then it is destroyed by the revolt of the farm’s heir himself. The plots of the two parts of the imaginary series (Old Mates and The Silver Trail) are not related, but the announcer’s introduction situates them both as random fragments of one never-ending story.

Like Vančo the Engineer (1995) and the theater performance The Evil Mobile (1997), the film uses the negative figure of the manager to comment on the image of businessmen in the 1990s. Soukup presented the same story as part of The Enemies of Man (1994) at a performance evening of the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design.
Source of text: Edice VIDA 3, VVP AVU, 2012
Author of text: Terezie Nekvindová, Sláva Sobotovičová
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INFORMATION IN PARTNER DATABASES

Artlist #1: Record at Artlist