Discoveries from Czech Republic World Cinema

This video, in which two men—one of them in a suit, the other naked—engage in their daily morning routine in a shared bathroom, was made by Radim Labuda as his first video performance. Labuda’s early work is characterized by an interest in the dynamics of partner relations as well as broader social relations, in the representation of the power relations of domination and subordination but also subversion. Representations of physicality, including nudity, can imply self-acceptance, sincerity, and decisiveness or at other times inadequacy and insecurity, depending on the context.

The story follows Estonian volunteer fighting for the German SS and his perilous journey as he attempts to reach American lines to avoid Soviet captivity, facing impossible choices between surrendering to the Soviets (and likely execution or Siberian camps) or continuing a hopeless fight westward.

In his provocative mosaic of opinions from different sides of the political spectrum, Martin Kohout reflects on where the ideals of November 1989 and the former sense of community have disappeared to. He tries to understand the progressive fragmentation of Czech society through two recent events. Both the parliamentary elections in 2017 and the subsequent direct election of the president made it clear that there is no consensus in the country today on even the most basic concepts such as "freedom" or "democracy". Sources of concern, ideas about the country's future direction, and the national myths on which cultural and political figures and disaffected voters rely all vary.

A group of classmates is invited to stay at a spa. However, they experience many twists and turns, funny situations, but also personal dramas. At the same time, we follow the story of a young thief who gets a job as a cook at a luxury spa hotel and experiences his first great love when he falls for a beautiful maid.

In 2018, when Juraj Jakubisko celebrated his 80th birthday, his students from the Miroslav Ondříček Film Academy in Písek, led by director and composer Patrik Ulrich, decided to pay tribute to him with a 30-minute documentary. The documentary focuses on three of the artist's key activities: film, visual arts and teaching. Quite a lot has been written and filmed about Jakubisko's film work, so the most interesting part of the film is a unique insight into Jakubisko's artistic world. For example, the protagonist shows us the pages of his cartoon diary. Jakubisko's collaborators, including his wife Deana and cameraman F. A. Brabec.

The lost magic of postcards is explored on film. A mosaic composed of seasonal motifs and short messages illustrates the relationship of several people to Vera. The passage of time is shown only by the change in the heads of state on the postage stamps. Will the mysterious recipient be found?

How do Belarusian politics, the waning glory of poetry, and the navel of the sky relate to each other? Director Radim Procházka explores the presidential candidacy of renowned Belarusian poet Uladzimir Nyaklyaev during the manipulated 2010 elections. After the police brutally beat and disperse protestors on Independence Square, the poet ends up under house arrest. Thanks to poetry, however, he can escape and fight.

This time, Captain Vašátko of the criminal police and Horác, a painter, bohemian, and amateur detective, will be searching for the murderer of the author of so-called computer poems. Kristián Vích is a mathematician approaching forty. He is very popular among his colleagues. He is secretly dating Tereza, the wife of his rude colleague. The lovers are planning Tereza's divorce and a life together. However, Vích's despotic mother has other plans for her son and a favorite among her colleagues. One day, Kristián's body is found floating in the river, and the perpetrator is, of course, unknown...

Irma Geisslová was a Czech poet and prose writer who lived in the late 19th and early 20th century. The director of the film and its direct participants enter into an imaginary dialogue with this talented author of intimate poetry, now forgotten by literary history. The result is a portrait of a personality composed of private confessions of affection for her work.

Petr, a top cardiac surgeon, is a very reserved and introverted man. His 21-year-old daughter Lucie has a congenital heart defect, and Petr decides to operate on her himself during a scheduled surgery. After the operation, they embark on an adventurous trip to a beautiful Nordic island. Here, they have enough time to reconnect with each other. One day, however, Lucie suddenly collapses in the middle of the wilderness.

In 2006, Milan and Tomas electrified a school campus and a hospital in a detached Zambian village. After four years, they return for the last time to find out about their system's failures, repair it and hand it over at last. The film follows them through chaotic days as well as pitch black nights and provides a fresh insight into the pitfalls of humanitarian development projects. Short circuits of all sorts, blending and dissolving of different worlds, rituals of gratitude and concepts of solutions. With no attempts to declare or evaluate anything, Solar Eclipse becomes a situation probe examining various forms of light and darkness. Will the two Czech linkboys succeed in lighting up the Zambian bushland?

On the outskirts of Třeskoprsk, in a small house, live four friends. Fifinka, Pinďa, Bobík, and Myšpulín sit around a campfire reminiscing about the adventures they had over the past year. Each of the heroes tells a story that they consider to be the very best. With Pinďa, we experience a successful climbing trip to Devil's Thumb; with Myšpulín, a thrilling search for the cruel Werewolf; with Bobík, a fantastic journey into space; and with Fifinka, a Christmas visit to the little devils. Whose story will be the most beautiful?

The Horned Men is an independent animated noir comedy based on the novel by Jan Tamchyna. When millions of men wake up with horns on their heads, the world spirals into chaos. A black-and-white animated satire exploring absurdity, masculinity and paranoia.

Christmas Eve is approaching, parents are preparing gifts, and little Anežka longs for a doll from a shop window. She has no idea that her dream doll, Dorotka, is under the control of a mysterious puppet. He has transformed himself into a Whisperer who appears to the girl, tempting her to lie, talk back, and be insensitive. Every time Anežka hurts someone, his power grows stronger. The doll moves further and further away from her. But Anežka also moves further away from herself. In the end, it is up to her whether the fairy tale will have a happy ending...

From fairy tales or funny gore games - it could be characterized by a black-and-white review of folk tabernacles involving sex with a pig, frowning, and the painful fall of the princess from her prison in the high tower.

A documentary based on the mutual experiences of a trio of directors, which portrays life in the border village of Bystré during the last year of the millennium. The film concentrates on the exuberant social life of the community, including many bizarre recent customs, as well as on several very intimate moments in the lives of the inhabitants.

The ancient biblical story of the construction and fall of the Tower of Babel, tragic fates, intolerance, but also the search for love and hope in a television recording of a musical by the Brno City Theater.

The story (or: the non-story) is focusing on small, unconscious gestures during a moment of non-communication on a train.

Before moving from the Czech Republic to Minnesota, a 13-year-old hockey player spends an extra day in his home country, reuniting with his estranged father and saying goodbye to his "best friend."

A series of short films created by FAMU students that have been screened at international festivals: Dear Dad, Sisters, Project Adam Basma, Con Spiro, and Vinland.

A trio of rock-and-roll musicians arrives in the south of France for a sun-drenched summer of debauched fun and romance in this breezy comedy.

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the Czech provinces, a handful of people come together: a paranoid prison guard, his hypochondriac neighbour and the latter’s silent, despairing wife, a lovesick nightclub manager and a stripper who is a single mum.

Film adaptation of a stage play about a therapy group for male sex-addicts.

Lemonade Joe, The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians, Dinner for Adele, The and the Golem - These and other Czech cinematography film hits have on thing in common: Jirí Brdecka. The Screenwriter, writer and cartoonist Brdecka was known in Czechoslovakia for his cooperation with Jirí Trnka, Jan Werich or Oldrich Lipský, and became a worldwide famous and respected director of animated films. But who was he in reality? Where did he seek inspiration and where did his rich inner world come from? How did he fight the non-free political regime and manage to show the world his free and timeless creation? Director Miroslav Janek gradually penetrates the interior of one of the most prominent personalities of Czech film and presents to the audience a miraculous world of animated paintings, graphics, oils, watercolors, frescoes and mosaics. On Christmas Eve in 2017, Jirí Brdecka would celebrate his 100th birthday.

A sixteen years old girl is brought to a park for little children by her puritan overprotective authoritarian and abusive mother to celebrate her 16th birthday. For the mother the Girl is still a little child. The most terrible thing that could happen to her is to see or think about anything connected to the sexuality, so she keeps her innocent 16 years old daughter away from teenagers, she sends her to play to the area for the most little children. While Mother is enjoying her power, the Girl meets a big Rabbit who surprisingly opens for her the whole new world of wonder.

This loose sequel to the fairy tale Cyprián and the Headless Great-Great-Grandfather takes us back to the castle of Sir Cyprián of Višně, which used to be full of ghosts. Although they have been freed, they still do not leave their human friends... They live happily in the castle with Cyprián and his charming wife Veronika. There is also their mischievous son Vojtík, who spends his days playing with the ghost Cecilka and even leaves the human world for his friend. Will he return? Will he manage to protect the abandoned castle from thieves?

The story of old Hana, who devoted her entire life to gardens. She designed them, planted them, cared for them, lived for them. Now she is old, sick, has difficulty moving, and feels that her life has shrunk and is coming to an end. However, Hana is not a whiny poor thing; she is a realistic woman with a sense of ironic humor who can still tease even her very grown-up son. She sees quite clearly that nothing new will happen in her life. The opposite is true. A young girl in worn-out sneakers enters Hana's life.

A strikingly realized puppet tale, based on an old folk ballad of a maiden who sets out to search for her lost fiancé in the turmoils of war. The beloved is found in a stationary hospital where the Grim Reaper is preparing for his gloomy task. It was inspired by the poem The Legend of the Dead Soldier by Bertolt Brecht.

Young knight Cyprian of Višně is long overdue for marriage, yet he refuses to even consider it. However, his cook Kunhuta cares deeply about his future, so she invites one bride after another to the castle. But Cyprian is friends with the castle ghosts—the headless knight, mischievous Cecilka, and the White Lady—and they willingly help him get rid of all the marriage-minded women. One day, their haunting scares Veronika, Kunhuta's niece, to death, but Cyprian suddenly becomes angry...

Even a college education does not protect against temptation—the young hero ceases to distinguish between right and wrong, but strangely enough, even his education does not help him to detect the fraud committed against him in time. Michal Najman, a student at the University of Economics, earns extra money as a pest controller. After being accused of exterminating expensive nutria, he signs a bond for a considerable amount of money. He naively agrees to repay the large debt without verifying its validity. He does not have the money and decides to obtain it through currency exchange and later through theft. And so, the initially blameless young man sinks deeper and deeper...

Helena, a free-spirited single café owner, takes her eight-year-old son Mikuláš to the mountains for a quiet Advent stay but, through a mix-up, ends up at a remote high-altitude lodge run by adventure guide Richard, his spirited daughter Zuzka, and his sociable brother Mišo. Unbeknownst to Helena, her parents also arrive, insisting the family spend Christmas together. Amid snowbound isolation, cultural clashes between city visitors and mountain folk, playful rivalries between the children, and unexpected challenges transform her planned retreat.

A crew of enthusiasts sets out in a monoxyl, a vessel carved from a tree trunk, on a journey across the Aegean Sea. Their goal is to verify how the first farmers could have traveled from Asia Minor to Europe 9,000 years ago. The documentary reveals new facts about ancient European history.

Ten men who brought Czech hockey back to the top talk about the 2024 World Championships in Prague. They share interesting details and stories about how the team of future champions came together and, at least for a time, united the entire hockey-loving nation around them. During the 17 days of the tournament, it became clear that the World Ice Hockey Championships are most at home in Czechia... The first sports documentary in which the Czech anthem is played, just like after the final victory.

A sensitive portrait of grandfather Miroslav Benda, a tried and true Sokol member and an ordinary man with extraordinary vigor and ideals, revealing a story of human resilience and optimism through nostalgia and situational comedy. The film is a kind of observational documentary - it includes family videos and archival film material. We’re drawn into the microcosm of the village of Křenovice u Slavkova by two Japanese women who have decided to visit Benda, thanks to his long friendship with a university professor from Tokyo. Together with Benda, the audience travels to the only Japanese gas station in Europe, to Prague’s Strahov Stadium, and to New York to visit American Sokol members.

Marek is a young boy who witnessed a violent attack on a bus. He can shoot the entire incident on his cell, but his fear and conscience prevent you from doing the right thing. Examination of character Marek and other incident circumstances bring new information, explaining the reasons for his behavior.

Documentary.In its catalogue, a Czech travel agency offers a "journey into the unknown", a tour of North Korea. That spring was the second time since 1990 that a group of Czech tourists set foot in the DPRK. The film follows twenty-seven Czechs who have decided to spend approximately 2,600 Euros on a sightseeing tour of a country which cultivates a cult of personality, maintains concentration camps for its citizens and doesn't hide its development of nuclear weapons. Foreign visitors are only allowed a view of a carefully prepared illusion, thoroughly supervised by "guides". What is more, the North Korean system is starkly reminiscent of our own past. Which emotions do our travellers experience: sympathy, nostalgia or, in contrast, happiness that "we already have this behind us"? How does a Czech person, after being accustomed to eighteen years of freedom and democracy, come to terms with the directives and restrictions of a totalitarian system?

The bonfire blazes and around it sits a group of children. Unlike the others, Clementine is not enjoying the evening. Telling scary stories is not her favourite pastime. When it turns out that she is easily scared, she gets upset, leaves the others and goes back to the camp through the woods.

Happily married for fifteen years, Zuzana finds out one day that her husband has been having an affair with another woman for a long time. Zuzana does not hesitate and decides to visit her daughter-in-law Lenka and make her an unconventional proposal - she suggests that she share the care of Jirka and turn him into a man for a change. Lenka finally agrees and both women introduce this new way of life to Jirka.

Private psychologist Jakub tries to help others, but he has his own problems. Then he gets to take care of his old father which starts a lot of funny situations due to fathers starting dementia. Then this new medication appears...

Hanka is a young, ambitious journalist who isn't afraid of anything. In order to get the best material for her work, she is willing to take advantage of any situation. One such situation arises when young girls start disappearing in the city.

Rosa and Dara recount their fantastic summer adventures, chasing down their grandparents' runaway cows in spots around the world.

Veronika and Mirek try to revive their relationship with a horror-themed Valentine’s trip to the Slavkov Forest, known as the “Knot of Evil.” The tour group includes anxious guide Alex; Ludmila, a detective novel fan sent by her kids; Honza, an extroverted gay journalist seeking a big story; and David and Dana, a married couple who reflect what Veronika and Mirek fear becoming. The bus visits historic massacre sites that seem unimpressive at first, but after Veronika discovers a strange doll, eerie changes unfold. Tensions rise as the travelers’ darker sides emerge—fear, aggression, and suspicion lead to growing hostility. A haunting cry echoes through the woods, suggesting the presence of a mythical being tied to the Slavic legend of the Navka, a spirit from the realm of the dead.

Commissioner Vašátko meets painter Horác while on vacation at a mountain cabin. A diverse group of guests has gathered here, ruled over by the aggressive and arrogant director Skorkovský, who humiliates and abuses his son with nonsensical orders. Horác takes this very badly, as do the others—but they are somehow indebted to the director. The tension in the cottage gradually increases, and the director is found dead. The police cannot get to the cottage because of a storm, so the experienced Commissioner Vašátko takes charge of the investigation. The cottage is full of people who have strong motives for murder...

A black comedy by Mirjam Landa about a successful race car driver and the race of his life. Alex cannot imagine his life without rallying and subordinates everything to it. After an accident in which his co-driver is seriously injured, Alex's manager desperately searches for a replacement, as the date of the most important race of the season is fast approaching. Alex wants to race at all costs, despite his doctor's explicit prohibition. He has been racing for fifteen years, but has always missed out on the top spot by a hair's breadth. After a fateful encounter with a girl, he surprisingly decides that she, Lucie, completely inexperienced but determined to win, will ride with him as his co-driver in the race of his life.

Life hasn't been easy on Mallory but after the birth of her son she tries desperately to kick her drug habit, and to stop living on the street. She wants to turn her back on her dark past and help those she knows best - people on the fringes of society.