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The White Dove (1960)

The Melbourne Cinémathèque & ACMI present

The White Dove

František Vláčil | Czechoslovakia | 1960 | Unclassified (15+)
Film

When

Wed 8 Oct 2025

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The titular dove is part of a flock of carrier pigeons released in northern France and bound for Germany. The bird loses its way and ends up in Prague where its fate depends on the film’s protagonist, a wheelchair-bound boy. Charting the relationship between the boy, an artist and the young German girl who owns the bird, this allegorical tale is a poetic vision of peace, freedom and friendship across Europe.

Released two years after Vláčil’s Venice Film Festival prizewinning short, Clouds of Glass, this was the director’s first feature-length film.

Preceded by Clouds of Glass František Vláčil (1958) 20 mins – Unclassified 15+. Vláčil’s poetic, nearly dialogue-free short concerns the love of flight shared by a boy and an old man.

Both films courtesy of the National Film Archive in Prague.

Format: DCP
Language: Czech, German and French with English subtitles
Source: National Film Archive in Prague
Courtesy: National Film Archive in Prague
Runtime: 73 mins

Event duration

73 mins

Rating

Unclassified (15+)

Where

Cinema 1, Level 2
ACMI, Fed Square

Plan your visit

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$30.5–36

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$174–325

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About Melbourne Cinémathèque

Australia's longest-running film society, Melbourne Cinémathèque screens significant works of international cinema in the medium they were created, the way they would have originally screened.

Melbourne Cinémathèque is self-administered, volunteer-run, not-for-profit and membership-driven. 

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