Discoveries from Czech Republic World Cinema

Doubt is a short animated essay, which through voices of four different authors from various fields of art, the film describes all stages of creative process.

A vivid encounter with former three time Czech National Boxing Champion. Experience the rise and fall in the career of a female fighter.

One day, a villager stops at a watering place and is horrified by what he sees. The water is unusually red.

Sylvie marries an only child who is strongly emotionally attached to his mother. His mother, Alžběta, cannot imagine losing her son Hynek, a young doctor, or sharing him with his wife. Therefore, she first tries to prevent the marriage, and when she fails, she tries to break up her son's marriage. Sylvia, the daughter-in-law, experiences firsthand the struggle with her mother-in-law over her son and her husband. She naturally wonders whether a man who, at the age of 35, is unable to stand up to his mother deserves a wife or just pity...

Under the influence of a mysterious synthetic drug, exotic dancer Vivienne slips into a distorted night where reality bends and nothing feels stable. As her senses blur, she drifts between memory, withdrawal and surreal visions, unable to tell what’s real and what’s imagined.

Two travelling variety comedians are hired to perform a somewhat unusual performance.

An auteur film by Matouš Vaďura, inspired by the work of Egon Hostovský, depicts the escape of the protagonist from the headquarters of a totalitarian state, where he is constantly consumed by fear and paranoia of arrest, a threat he faces as a writer. Hardened by the pervasive arbitrariness of the regime, he flees from his beloved, with whom he is unable to experience a fulfilling relationship due to his self-imposed isolation and fear. He embarks on a restorative journey during which he begins to realize the harrowing shortsightedness of his decision. This experimental road movie is filmed using a “spontaneous method” on a “diary-like” Super 8mm camera, where capturing fleeting beauty in the moment is essential for the filmmaker.

Czechoslovakia, summer 1968. Charlotte is rushed to hospital following a collapse resulting from a heart defect. The medical verdict is that the only way to save her life is a heart transplant.

This studio exercise is an approximate reconstruction of what happened in June 2023 in the life of a Ukrainian editor. While she was in Prague editing footage of bare-knuckle boxing, her sister was celebrating her birthday in Dnipro and Wagner's paramilitary group was marching on Moscow. Amidst several parallel dramas, the protagonist struggles to maintain the order of the boxing match and in her own life.

In the ancient kingdom, after the death of the ruler, his son Alexander is to take the throne. The high priestess Shira is to present the future king with the most graceful noble girls as brides in a sensual procession. But Alexander's sister Briana wants to seize power. She has her brother thrown into prison, and the young women are forced to work as slaves in the silver mines and satisfy Briana's unusual sexual desires. But Shira takes up the fight against her.

Pegah is a teenage girl who tries her best to provide money for getting her friend Hooman out of drug withdrawal camp. After providing the money...

After his greed lands him in the lair of the Vodník (a terrifying water spirit), a young man must learn to value his own humanity over his material desires.

Artistic endeavour isn’t about competing; even so, applicants still have to be placed in order of merit at the academy’s entrance exams. But how do you assess artistic talent? And what role can art play in today’s world? A layered, observational documentary which presents a portrait of an institution and a light generational statement in one.

An emasculated 20-something, in an attempt to prove his worth to his girlfriend, enlists his inept friend and stages a home-robbery only to be faced with a real one.

The devil and the water sprite, typical Czech characters, play the leading roles in today's fairy tale. They were invited to the castle by Lord Nesvít himself to help him win the hand of Lady Luzmila from the Cloud Kingdom. However, Nesvít is not so much interested in her as in her gold. But Luzmila is cut from the same cloth. And so the devil and the water sprite are there to find out who has a black soul and who needs help. But in the process, their magic causes a lot of confusion...

In the middle of the village of Drnovice, with a population of two thousand, near Vyškov in South Moravia, stands a football stadium for eight thousand spectators. It is a pyramid of a defunct football civilization, once ruled by famous names such as Karel Brückner and Radek Drulák. The rise and fall of the Drnovice football club is typical of Czech football, politics, and business in the 1990s—behind it lie not only beautiful goals, but also mysterious sponsors, corruption, and doping. Let's travel back to a time when even the highest-ranking government officials couldn't tell heating oil from gasoline, and when Czech footballers were playing for the European title.

The world after the apocalypse is not a nice place to live. The old days are almost forgotten, and civilization is gone. The past is distorted and misunderstood, and its relics often serve only to consolidate the power of the strong. But even among the slaves, the remnants of past times resonate, and so a legend of a savior arises. A savior who will liberate them under the symbol of the hammer and sickle.

Builder who loves to destroy. Shy eccentric, bold alarmist, austere hedonist, and generous usurper. Inventor of life. He would never stop dismantling and demolishing until he got what he wanted. Walls and objects would cease to exist; a captured light would be all that was left. A life of a man who never gave in and was admired as well as beaten for it. Can one stick to one's precision and purity without liquidating oneself and his surroundings? Is it possible to live with a visionary? What is the price of living without compromise? Collage as a method, fragments of memories, searching for one’s identity, ich-form. A feature documentary about the life and death of a radical architect David Kopecky.

On a tense journey with his wife and daughter, a weary husband struggles to keep his fraying family together. But as the storm clouds gather, he looks to give up the shelter of their car.

The grandchildren from Prague come to visit their colorful Wallachian grandfather for the holidays. Their busy parents send them with the good intention of changing their virtual world of the internet, cell phones, and tablets. In the Wallachian village, everything works a little differently. It's not that there's no signal, but the Wallachians simply live a little differently, in their own way. What's more, if you find a forgotten treasure in your grandfather's attic that catches the interest of the rest of the village, you'll suddenly have a ticket to a mysterious excursion through the history of old Wallachia from spring to winter.

The village priest wants no secrets among his sheep. When he is forced to undergo his own confession, no one shows great mercy.

How to raise boys in a time of changing roles and growing uncertainty? A documentary by director Andrea Culková follows four young people who, through their own theater project, explore questions of masculinity, emotions, and societal pressure – in dialogue with expert voices from the fields of psychology, history, and pedagogy.

Buď laska means please in Ukrainian and Ukraine is asking us for help. Over a thousand kilometers and 4 armored ambulances that the Czechs relied on during the first months of the war. What is it like to be in a country where war is the order of the day? What personal stories are hidden under the "anonymous mass of green uniform" of the army? And why does it make sense to help?

A young film fan discovers that he has become the main character in an action movie, which, despite his wishes, is being created by the unpredictable Director. Will he manage to defeat the evil villains and save the love of his life thanks to his knowledge of the rules of the genre?

After a big fight, teenage girl Lucie steals her boyfriend's dearest motorcycle for revenge.

In 1947, Fanny is still living in the Bergen-Belsen DP camp, hoping to emigrate to Palestine. When her husband Karl finds her after years of searching, that hope is shattered, forcing her to return to Vienna – into a society that once sought to erase her. Fanny and Karl must then confront whether a future together is still possible after all they have lost.

While caring for her geranium, an old woman reminisces about the man she received it from.

Deep breath, experiences that dig even deeper, and dark ambient as their companion. Inspired by Bardo, the Tibetan name for the liminal state between death and rebirth, Viera Čákanyová embarks on a fascinating introspective journey towards darkness. Through generative animation, she sets matter and thoughts into motion. In the end, returning to reality may be the greatest challenge.

A documentary study by Ivan Vojnár featuring people picked at random and famous personalities he has met in the Café Konvikt and other places in Prague. Not unlike figures from a Hrabal story, they represent a very broad range of types— from a mentally handicapped road-sweeper to a philosopher. Each person, even the most seemingly normal, is exceptional in some way. Most speak directly to the camera about their relations, work, simple and difficult problems, democracy, and Czech society in general.

Performed by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by J. Bělohlávek. Slavonic Dances are among the most popular works by Antonín Dvořák and Czech Romantic music in general. The first series, originally composed for four-hand piano and later orchestrated for symphony orchestra, is inspired mainly by Czech folk dances. The orchestral version of Slavonic Dances is considered a groundbreaking work, thanks to which Dvořák attracted attention abroad and launched his international career. A television recording of this outstanding performance was made in 2014. The Czech Philharmonic Orchestra is conducted by Jiří Bělohlávek.

Minerals have brought us many benefits. Coal, gas, oil and minerals made the industrial revolution possible, freed a large proportion of humanity from grinding poverty and brought about an unprecedented boom in the world economy. The dark side of this success story is the exhaustion of our planet’s resources, something we have only become aware of relatively recently.

Adam Ondra is the best. Born in 1993, the Czech climber has broken a series of records and is widely recognised as the most accomplished in his discipline. No mountain or wall can resist him. But who is this young man who knows no fear and never seems to encounter failure? Jan Šimanek and Petr Záruba deliver an intimate portrait, beyond the usual sensationalism of sports headlines.

Although Mirek is a young man built like a mountain, he already receives disability benefits. His illness manifests itself in occasional micro-sleeps and episodes resembling epilepsy. The tragicomic hero occasionally loses consciousness for a brief moment, even in public. He lives only through his dreams and fantasies, and his intimate life consists solely of frequent calls to an erotic hotline, which cost Mirek's mother a considerable amount of money. Through his voice on this hotline, Mirek meets a mysterious girl with whom he falls platonically in love...

From the music of UK composer Rachel Portman, Vietnamese-Czech filmmaker Diana Cam Van Nguyen crafts a story of animated fruits that is a celebration of life, a bat mitzvah of a film, dense with color and cheer. This short film is part of the 2x25 Project of Film Fest Gent and the World Soundtrack Awards. The project commissioned 25 composers to compose a short piece of music, after which 25 filmmakers made short films that are the ultimate symbioses of music and cinematography, fitting completely within the DNA of the festival. The result: 25 exceptional films where the music inspired the form, narrative and texture.

A meditative film revealing urban and natural recesses crossed by endless nooks of industrial piping intertwining its surroundings like a Uroboros serpent. The pipes guide the camera eye across large fields and blocks of flats, connecting canoeists, kids at play and a bubbling stream, serving as silent witnesses to their living existence.

Dina is a girl who lives in her own special world, in which there is a Birdman - an invisible friend, with whom she shares her experiences, and he responds by playing the accordion. But Dina is in love with a very real neighbor, and today is his birthday. Dina seems determined to act decisively.

Although this is a classic fairy tale, you will see a number of new characters in it. Right at the beginning, you will meet three fairies, Týna, Mína, and Vesna, who bring their two young charges, Isabel and Felicia, to the royal ball. The king chooses Felicia as his bride, while the other, Isabel, swears terrible revenge. Fortunately, the curse she casts over the cradle of the little princess Růženka is mitigated by the wise fairy Vesna, but she is unable to break it. And so the whole kingdom lives in fear of the approaching sixteenth birthday of Princess Sleeping Beauty. Despite all the ingenious precautions, Isabella achieves her goal and the whole kingdom falls into a deep sleep. Fortunately, there is a spell more powerful than all others—love? Two rescuers set out to wake Sleeping Beauty: the gardener Janek and Prince Matyáš. Which of them is the right one, and what will happen to the evil Isabela? You'll find out this Christmas.

The meeting of five former lay jurors of the Czech Joy section of Ji.hlava IDFF with five directors gives rise to a playful documentary portrait of a place, its people and a whole lot of films. The dialogue they have with each other mirrors the events at the festival throughout its duration and gives a concrete face and voice to the main actors in this celebration of documentary filmmaking. Moreover, the customary roles are momentarily reversed and the perspective is refreshingly changed. The audience directs and the filmmakers become actors in the short films/confessions that are being shot as they talk about their creative method, their current and future plans, or their worldviews.

Dogs, incredible companions, can be trained to possess abilities such as illness detection, seizure alerts, and even scent identification for crime-solving. In the Czech Republic, scent evidence, collected using absorbent materials, is pivotal in convictions. Unlike some countries where it's supplementary, here it's often the sole proof, lacking collaboration with scientists and leading to significant consequences – scent evidence often becomes the crucial or even sole piece of evidence leading to the conviction of the accused, carrying catastrophic consequences…

An animated documentary that, through an intimate conversation between a daughter and a mother, searches for understaning and explores family bonds. The film reveals the inner conflict between freedom and sacrifice. Gradually, walls that connect and confine us across generations emerge, shaping who we are to ourselves and to one another.

When a young, naive, film student finds out that her parents might be getting a divorce, she desperately sets out to save their marriage in time for the school’s film premiere.