Stanislav Barabas is a Slovakian director, one of the first students of the Prague Film Academy (FAMU). He made many documentaries before he started directing feature films. His feature film debut was A Song about the Grey Pigeon (Piesen o sivom holubovi, 1961), followed by The Angelos Trio (Trio Angelos, 1963), The Bells Toll for the Barefooted (Zvony pre bosych, 1965) and Tango for a Bear (Tango pre medveda, 1966). In 1968, he achieved international success with his film Krotka (1968) based on F. M. Dostoievski’s novel. In that same year, he immigrated to Canada. After only one year, he moved on to Germany. There he lived and made films and TV series until the end of his life. Stanislav Barabas adapted Dostoevsky’s novella The Gentle Creature (Krotka, 1967) during his second peak of creativity before his defection (he lived in Germany from 1969 on). As in Knells for the Barefoot, Barabas continued to question the tidy designations separating victim and victimizer in the relationship between an old husband and his young wife. Both Barabas and Martin Holly preferred to work with professional actors and both later became distinguished directors in various film genres― Holly in Slovakia and Barabas in Germany. (<From Czechoslovak to Slovak and Czech Film>)