Doomed Beauty

Lída Baarová: an actress whose beauty was her greatest gift as well as her curse. As a young, attractive girl she quickly became the leading Czechoslovak movie star and was able to captivate the most feared men of her era. But her affair with the Minister of Propaganda of the Third Reich, Joseph Goebbels, transformed her into an enemy of her own country and a symbol of collaboration. Documentary filmmaker Helena Třeštíková met with Lída Baarová during the actress' exile abroad and filmed Lída's open confession in the final years of her life, using unique material from several European film archives and excerpts from this once beloved, later reviled actress' most famous film roles. This self-destructive love story, as monumental as an ancient Greek tragedy, is fatally linked to European history and provides an exceptionally honest portrait of a woman who had the world at her feet at the height of her career – which made her subsequent fall into oblivion and loneliness all the more staggering. (Aerofilms)