Miloš Forman's first feature film "Černý Petr" ("Black Peter") was released in 1964 and was not viewed favorably by Czech governmental authorities until it was selected for competition at that year's Locarno Film Festival, where it won the top prize, thereby gaining the approval of Czechoslovakia's communist bureaucracy and making it possible for Forman to pursue further projects with relative freedom. Unsure of what the next project should be, Forman recalled an experience he'd had driving around Prague late one evening when he'd encountered a young woman struggling to cross a bridge while carrying a heavy suitcase. He gave her a lift and learned her story: she had come to the big city from Varnsdorf, where she had been seduced by a young engineer, who had given her a phony address in Žižkov and promised to take her away from her dreary life. After confirming that she had been duped, Forman interviewed the girl for much of the rest of the night, before putting her on a train back to her home town. Commentators have noted that Forman was particularly sensitized to such situations because when he was 10, his mother had been taken away by the Gestapo, never to be seen again, which led to years of Forman traveling around searching for security with nothing but a suitcase. In Forman's words: "I guess I'll always be moved by the sight of a young person with a suitcase seeking a connection in a strange city."