Discoveries from Czech Republic World Cinema

A substance that saves lives and destroys them at the same time. How does fentanyl work in medicine and who does it help with pain? And what are the fates of those who have fallen victim to this powerful and addictive drug?

A personal road-movie where a Czech filmmaker goes to Ukraine, a country where he has familial ties, friendly bonds and which has been the place for a long working relationship. Individual meetings are a way and an opportunity for him to think about how local recent events are affecting him personally, but also helping him create successful social interactions.

Renowned Czech oboist in the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra Ostrava chamber music series. Vilém Veverka, one of the most respected Czech oboists, performs as a soloist with major orchestras and has performed a number of demanding compositions from the second half of the 20th century in European premieres. This time, he will present important works by Czech composers to the audience together with the string orchestra Ensemble Opera Diversa. The highlights of the concert are compositions by Gideon Klein and Pavel Haas, who belong to the so-called Terezín composers. Pavel Haas' Suite for Oboe and Piano, Op. 17, was composed in the autumn of 1939 under the shadow of occupation, and its arrangement for oboe and string orchestra by composer Ondřej Kyas is a reference to the unfinished nature of Haas' composition.

Footage shot between 2020 and 2022 gives a vivid picture of the anti-government demonstrations that took place during the coronavirus pandemic. Among the opponents of vaccinations, masks, and politicians, there are representatives of various layers of Czech society who present their personal opinions in authentic interviews.

A young hunter is preparing for a crucial moment in his life. What happens when a fired arrow misses its target? And can the miss mean that the hunter in fact passes the rite of passage?

Documentary about Czech filmaker Vera Chytilova.

The story of the main character, Adam, who leads an ordinary, boring life in which he is unhappy. The main reason is that he and his wife have been trying unsuccessfully to conceive a child for a long time. The turning point comes at two of the most important moments of his life. His wife tells him that he is going to be a father, and a week later his doctor informs him that, due to his daughter's illness, he will probably never get to see her. Adam leaves everything behind and sets off on his last journey to make a documentary about himself, so that his daughter can see who her father really was...

Platée, a silly and conceited nymph, falls for a fake wedding to Jupiter, king of the gods. This new staging of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Baroque masterpiece is colourful, eccentric, full of wit and free of taboos, yet also surprisingly deep. Louis XV had Platée performed for his son's wedding festivities in 1745. The burlesque raised Rameau’s standing and played a part in his appointment as composer to the court. In 1749, the Paris opera added Platée to its repertoire, notwithstanding the outrage sparked by the libretto.

Czech freediver, national record holder, and daughter of a synchronized swimmer and diver, Jindřiška Zajacová, attempts to tune into the water and let herself be drawn to the centre of the Earth, and perhaps even to the centre of herself. This contemplative portrait of the appeal of the soothing blue absolute touches on the physical limits of the human body, and seeks a way to float through the terrestrial world above the surface.

What helps teenagers with serious mental health problems return to normal life? A mosaic of stories from children and parents who have experienced hospitalization at the Opařany Children's Psychiatric Hospital shows the types of treatment that can help children return to a full life even after serious problems such as depression, suicidal tendencies, self-harm, or eating disorders.

Preparation for an exhibition, the rush, and the invisible work.

The film is a space for the meeting of two places, between which the director seeks a connection. She attempts to embrace the roots from which she had to distance herself in order to truly breathe. The film explores different worlds and the tension between tradition and the desire for freedom.

Inspired by Jonas Mekas' diary films and his father's home videos, Michal Böhm composes a candid self-portrait of his own desire for fatherhood from numerous visual fragments. Six years of life, dozens of gestures, smiles, and silent faces captured by the nimble eye of an 8mm camera. A breakup with a partner, a new relationship, his mother's serious illness, meetings with friends. Demonstrations, pandemics, war, and weddings. Things both fleeting and fundamental. Life as a fabric of fleeting impressions and the camera as a tool that captures, shapes, and preserves them for future generations. And above all, reflections on the future and the legacy we will leave behind, and doubts about whether this is the right world and the right time to have a child.

Diptych is a short documentary portrait of two artists — painter Květa Monhartová and sculptor Miroslava Nová. Against the backdrop of their long-standing friendship, the film explores both the contrasts and harmonies between two entirely different artistic philosophies. In her dialogue with stone, Miroslava Nová allows nature itself to speak, rejecting human intervention and striving for purity of form and meaning. In contrast, Květa Monhartová perceives painting as a space for embodying personal experience and emotion. Beyond a subtle reflection on friendship, the film reveals how essential artistic creation is for both women as a means of self-discovery and expression of personal identity.

Despite their hardships, Ljubica and the few remaining other village residents find peace, connection and freedom in a remote Macedonian village.

In a cyberpunk metropolis ruled by corporate surveillance, Nov leads a double life: a compliant data worker by day and an anti-establishment hacker by night. Tormented by the death of her sister and driven by revenge, she discovers a way to enter cyberspace through R.E.M sleep, bending digital realm at the cost of her sanity. As her grip on the real world blurs, Nov confronts memory, identity, and the ghostly spectres of a world lost to technology. Dreamer is a stylized, hauntology-infused vision that follows in the steps of classic cyberpunk through analog aesthetics and philosophical background.

A dying woman stumbles, then crawls, through the courtyard if a group of apartment blocks looking for help.

The shells of long-abandoned artificial stars, held together by autonomous anti-expansionary devices, were destined to fade into obscurity along with the rest of the universe. It was only a matter of time before the corpse of the Laniakea supercluster followed suit to make space for a new cYCLE.

When relationship issues push Alex into finding a job, he ends up in the Czech gay porn industry.

A zoologist couple travels to West Africa to document some of the worlds deadliest snakes. Their expedition reveals a surprising similarity between handling deadly snakes and living in a healthy relationship.

Looking for clues about the “Chaplin of Theresienstadt”, ghetto cabaret artist Karel Švenk, Schönemann meets his acquaintances and creates an intergenerational network of memory. Laughter was a form of defence. Resistance means commemoration.

The village teacher Pan Trzhiska found the diary of his grandfather, who almost a hundred years ago was taken prisoner in Russia and later fought there as part of the Czechoslovak Corps. Pan Trzhiska, a film enthusiast and musician, decided to go to his grandfather's "places of military glory" on the Trans-Siberian Express. His journey, his encounters with Russians, his reflections on democracy, the KGB, freedom and philosophy form the basis of this documentary comedy road movie.

Some of Pakistan’s most remote Himalayan valleys are home to the Kalash community, who follow an ancient, pre-Islamic faith. In recent years, the Kalash population has dwindled to only 4000 as increasing numbers are converted to Islam. Can the community survive, or does it face cultural extinction?

Singer and musician Petr Ulrych celebrated his 70th birthday in February this year, his sister Hana celebrated her 65th birthday a month later, and together they have been playing and singing for an incredible fifty years. Add to that forty years since the birth of their band Javory and the fifth anniversary of the younger Javory Beat, and there is reason to celebrate several significant anniversaries of a unique musical legend! The Ulrych siblings will commemorate all these anniversaries with a concert by Javory and Javory Beat at the Mahen Theater in Brno, which will be broadcast by Czech Television.

The Flower reflects the director's experience of living in a totalitarian communist state and pays homage to Trnka’s film Ruka, The Hand, made 3 years before the Soviet tanks rolled into Prague in 1968.

Tamara Moyzes graduated from the New Media Studio in 2005 with this project consisting of a three-channel video installation, for which she received the award for the best thesis project of the year at the Academy of Fine Arts. She later edited the triptych into a kind of promo video, which highlights her central theme as an artist, namely the sexualization of violence in a political context. The protagonist of the film is Liad, a twenty-six-year-old Jewish citizen of Israel who studies Middle Eastern political science and also makes a living as a dominatrix. Due to her political beliefs and free thinking with regard to sexuality, she often finds herself in conflict with the laws of her own country.

War is no joke. But does that mean you can't joke about war? Stand-up comedian Mariana Shama fled from Kiev to Prague. Here she wonders if it is appropriate to joke in tragic times.

The film tells the story of a middle-aged couple's relationship. A very intimate look into their kitchen and living room with just a few scenes. It shows a glimpse into their lives before they decide to change something in their relationship.

What if your girlfriend tells you she's having a baby with you? What if home birth seems more appealing to you than hospital birth? What if you live in a house with other roommates? Find out how a young couple dealt with these issues.

Moving from Siberia to the Baltic Sea makes the author look into family history. However, she not only has to dismantle family archives and look for lost relatives, but also face the tangled labyrinths of memory as such.

An interplay of horizontal and vertical lines, as well as other types of lines, found in in the public space, evokes a lyrical narrative combining them into a visual continuity in one image. Among found objects, events, and spaces, new relationships and continuations are created.

In the mid-1960s, Pilař recorded a short sketch with the family of the writer and lyricist Václav Fischer in the Baroque complex Skalka near the town of Mníšek pod Brdy. He added an overpainting to the film, respecting the actions of the protagonists so that the characters would react to the coloured flying objects. Pilař made the untitled material into a video screener called A Film Sketch 1965 (ca. 1984), and later edited it with video effects under the title Painting into the Air (ca. 1991).

Al Amari is a Palestinian refugee camp located in the West Bank. It has been here for more than seventy years and during this time its original appearance has been replaced by concrete buildings resembling a regular city. This is the Czech director’s second visit to this distinctive community, and despite many residents’ wariness of her, she forms friendships with the locals. The film consists of several portraits of refugees living in Al Amari and provides a report on the difficult everyday life of people surrounded by fear, war and violence. Taken as a whole, these portraits form the story of the filmmaker and her protagonists.

A personal and poignant account of the author's brother, who embodies "hopelessness and self-pity," combining a variety of techniques and deeper themes.