Discoveries from Czech Republic World Cinema

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 It has been here for more than seventy years and during this time its original appearance has been replaced by concrete buildings resembling a regular city.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 student from Sutnar in Pilsen, who is also an animation teacher for children, uses faded old objects, transparencies, and an overhead projector in her film experiment to create different moods. However, these speak to the audience not only through their visuality, but also through the poem of the same name by Ewald Murrer.

"Yenufa" is an outstanding phenomenon in the music of the 20th century. Drawing on Moravian folklore, Janáček faithfully and deeply conveyed the drama of a peasant girl. The composer followed the path of Mussorgsky, revealing the spiritual life of people through the recreation of intonations of living speech. The libretto is based on a drama written in a naturalistic manner. Free from naturalism, Janáček's music has powerful emotional strength and psychological truth. It was written during a difficult period in the composer's life (illness and death of his daughter).

Composer, singer, bandleader, and music producer Karel Vágner celebrated his 75th birthday with a spectacular concert at Prague's Lucerna Hall, where he was congratulated by a whole host of his musician friends and, of course, numerous members of his family.

Recording of a private concert held on June 11, 2004, at the Basilica of St. Peter and Paul at Vyšehrad, which marked the beginning of the Ordo Lumen Templi order.

A concert recording of Tomáš Klus performing with his band Cílová skupina at the Werk Arena in Třinec, concluding the successful RecyKlus tour, featuring his best songs as voted for by Klus's fans.

A recording of the Olympic band's concert celebrating 55 years of performing, which took place on December 9, 2017, at the O2 Arena in Prague.

Highlights from the mega concert organized by Impuls radio at Prague's O2 Arena on October 19, 2019.

A thought experiment viewing time as a landscape. Mesmerizing images of rocks shrouded in fog represent an anonymous, featureless space. The rocky terrain becomes a face, its wrinkles inscribed with time as a metaphysical plane of material existence.

The cycle of escaping from cages in which we inevitably find ourselves again and again.

An animated film inspired by famous artists from around the world and the music of contemporary Czech composer Martin Klusák. Among the animated works of art, we can recognize traces of Joan Miró and Edward Hopper.

Every year, 15,000 Czech fishermen head to Norway to fulfill their desire to fish at sea. Here they experience moments of mostly male camaraderie, which, like the ubiquitous cigarette smoke, revolves around boyish talk over cans of beer and no one is immune to cabin fever. At least this is the case of six friends meeting in a restaurant in Jihlava. And when the legendary halibut start running through the fjords, the plot of this documentary tragicomedy is taken care of - the compulsive need to catch the coveted fish drives not only the six protagonists, but also the plot of the film itself.

Forest life is idyllic until an amateur hunter appears, but what is he to do when the deer isn’t cooperative enough to run?

A young man and his adult friend are desperately trying to escape a war zone. Everything hinges on a forged passport, a new name and a new identity - those things hold the keys to life and death. For in this war everyone is in the same boat and simultaneously against each other.

This long-term observational film compares the situation of prisoners sentenced for life with the situation of those who leave their prison cells after several years. What does a man who has been looking forward to the day he would leave the prison gate for such a long time do? How does he cope with the fact that everything is different from what he imagined? What choices will he make?

A historical documentary about one of the largest military operations in Upper Silesia, the Sudetenland, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Often unknown archival materials interspersed with a series of animations capture significant events of the 1930s and 1940s in the Ostrava, Opava, and Těšín regions.

Jaroslav Kučera in an intimate portrait composed of private footage, in which he sketches the most intimate space of his family with a relaxed hand. Thanks to the director's sensitive selection, we observe scenes of spontaneous posing in front of the camera as well as moments of soothing repose, captivatingly brought together by a soundtrack produced by Aid Kid.

What happens behind the walls of our hospitals? How do doctors treat us? How can a healthy child become a lying wreck? All this was revealed by a hidden camera in the next episode of Infiltration ... (Česká televize)

An experimental metric film that layers various images of the Czech automotive, chemical, and heavy industries from 2009 to the present and conceptually combines them with aesthetic alterations to the image. Economic crisis and recovery are expressed in varying sharpness, color, saturation, contrast or brightness.

A radical testimony of the strongest known natural psychedelic, tryptamine 5-MeO-DMT produced by Bufo Alvarius, a toad of the Sonoran desert.

The generation conflict present in the daily disputes of a grandmother and granddaughter, the film director, lead to her decision to leave; the compact images of the gradual moving out of the house, bound by place and time, and the long, agonizing dialogues become a basis for the cruelly intimate documentary within private reality, where feelings mingle with reproach; and where, despite mutual blame, nobody is guilty, as the captured situation is accompanied by nothing but misunderstanding.

A male and a female bird meet and fall in love. An egg is produced and all is happy in the nest until their love is tested and fate comes knocking. A humorous love story that reflects the similarities between avian and human life.

Librarian begins to realize that something is weirdly off in the world he inhabits.

A mysterious furry creature is roaming around a small British town called Blackbury, stealing food. Is it from outer space?

In a post-apocalyptic world, a small robot forms an emotional bond with a plant, which it considers its last friend.

A man is peacefully bathing in a pond when a butterfly flies in and things take a dramatic turn.

Two plump birds compete for a spot on a tree branch.

Two plump birds compete for a spot on a tree branch.

An old lonely man lives in a small apartment with his cat, and his only activity is sewing a sleeping bag.

A waiter in a restaurant tries to get rid of a fly that keeps landing on a guest's face.

Two anthropomorphic dumplings fight over a lollipop.

Divided into nine chapters or rather absurd scenes, the film is full of mischievous creatures that create unusually morbid situations.

A short portrait of an artist moving between reality and his inner universe.

Exhausted by the rhythm of São Paulo, overdue bills, and the promise that AI should make everything faster, a man on the verge of collapse realizes that the pressure suffocating him may also hide a way out.

In the aftermath of a recent genocide, Haïg, a young survivor is chosen to father a new generation of his people and ensure the survival of his endangered Armenian race, while sacrificing his personal freedom.

It is well known that Miloň Čepelka plays (not only) female roles in the legendary Jára Cimrman Theater. What is less well known is that, alongside Jiří Šebánek, Zdeněk Svěrák, and Ladislav Smoljak, he is one of the founding members of this groupe of researchers, which is studying the career of the fictional genius from Liptákov. In addition to his roles in theater and film, however, Miloň Čepelka is also a poet developing the ancient Japanese form of haiku, a prose writer, and a lyricist devoted to a wide range of musical genres, from pop hits to brass band music.

A man wants to send a message to a woman through a game of telephone, but the message does not reach its destination unchanged…

Six-year-old Viktorka tries to understand the complex relationships in her family. At the same time, she prepares for the birth of her sibling and her first day at school. Her optimism, playfulness, and imagination help her overcome all challenges.