Marek Daniel

Something Like Happiness

Over the course of a year, in a small town scarred and beaten down by industrialization, Tonda and Monika, friends since childhood, come to experience what life might be like if they could be with one another – which they seemingly can't. Or can they?

The Wild Bees

A portrait of a small Moravian village and its quirky inhabitants.

The Protector

A Czech journalist joins a Prague radio station what broadcasts Nazi propaganda in order to protect his Jewish wife. However, as the Nazi rule over Czechoslovakia calls for more and more collaboration, his relationship with his wife spirals downward.

The Country Teacher

A gifted and well-qualified young teacher takes a job teaching natural sciences at a grammar school in the country. Here he makes the acquaintance of a woman and her troubled 17-year old son. The teacher has no romantic interest in the woman but they quickly form a strong friendship, each recognizing the other's uncertainties, hopes and longing for love.

Up and Down

Milan and Goran are two criminals who smuggle illegal immigrants. One night after they complete a smuggle, they discover that one of the immigrants has left a baby behind. Milan and Goran decide to sell the baby to Lubos and Eman, who are responsible for running an illegal baby adoption center. Lubos and Eman make attempts to sell the baby to Miluska and Frantisek, a barren couple.

Dry Season

Two neighboring clans and two different approaches to life. What happens when the strained relationship of two domineering fathers interferes with the love of their own children?

Polski film

“The fact that I’m playing myself doesn’t mean that it’s me.” Four old schoolmates, today well-known Czech actors (Pavel Liška, Tomáš Matonoha, Josef Polášek and Marek Daniel), decide to make a movie together. Their ambitious colleague Jan Budař takes up directing duties and financing has arrived from Poland. What started out pleasantly enough, however, soon goes awry. Liška’s pronunciation difficulties, Daniel’s alter ego Havlát, and Matonoha’s financial machinations turn the shoot into a fight for survival. More than just a film about friendship and the absurdity of actors’ lives, director Marek Najbrt gives us a witty meditation on reality and illusion, and a unique take on the reality film genre. One of Pavel Liška’s on-set comments (“I didn’t know if I should act as if I were acting, or act as if I weren’t acting, or just not act at all”) illustrates the provocative nature of Najbrt’s subversive, quasi-documentary game.

Vaterland: A Hunting Logbook

Returning to their ancestral lands, descendants of a formerly aristocratic family hunt for mythical creatures that occupy the nearby wilderness.

Doblba!

The story of the black Christmas comedy Doblba! takes place in the extended Muk family. The main character is Karel Muk, a simple man with simple dreams, living a somewhat stereotypical married life with Tereza, the stepmother of Karel's daughter Valinka. In the words of the script: ... Karel worked for many years as a cemetery caretaker and liked to say: "Only death is certain," but he never admitted that it could affect him in any way. There wasn't much to praise him for. His brother Robert Muk, on the other hand, is a confident and practical businessman, and the youngest, Pavel, seems unable to decide whether to find meaning in life in protecting the Šumava forests or in erotic games with secretaries. One day, shortly before Christmas, the Muk family receives an unexpected inheritance.

Casting

Casting is stressful. Hanka, the casting director, is heading for a breakdown and her state of mind isn’t helped by the myriad whims of her actors or the unwelcome visits from her ex-husband, a desperate hypochondriac. A short comedy by Marek Najbrt with a truly stellar cast.

Alois Nebel

A train dispatcher encounters a mute stranger who appears out of nowhere, and finds himself mysteriously involved with a murder in Poland. The end of the eighties in the twentieth century. Alois Nebel works as a dis­patcher at the small railway station in Bílý Potok, a remote village on the Czech–Polish border. He's a loner, who prefers old timetables to people, and he finds the loneliness of the station tranquil – except when the fog rolls in. Then he hallucinates, sees trains from the last hundred years pass through the station. They bring ghosts and shadows from the dark past of Central Eu­rope. Alois can’t get rid of these nightmares and eventually ends up in sanatorium. In the sanatorium, he gets to know The Mute, a man carrying an old photograph who was arrested by the police after crossing the border. No one knows why he came to Bílý Potok or who he’s looking for, but it is his past that propels Alois on his journey…

Halt, Or I'll Miss!

It is April 1945, spring begins and ends the war. German transport heading away from Bohemia.

Long Live the Family!

Libor, a former teacher, enjoys a well-paid position as a bank manager, living in a luxurious villa outside Prague. His business partners are taken into custody and the authorities have a few questions for him to answer. Rather than wait around, he decides to take off to Moravia with his wife and two children. In the process, he pretends that everything is normal, rediscovers the value of family life, meets up with a former colleague lost in provincial obscurity, and becomes the object of a manhunt. Libor is not a criminal type, merely someone who signs cheques and is drawn into a business world failing to recognise its own criminality (he doesn’t even flee the country).

Grand Prix

Roman runs a fake car dealership on the outskirts of town, has three children, a vivacious wife and drinks. Emil, a fanatical lover of order, runs his downtown garage, which is backed by his greatest pride: a mock-up of a Formula One car. When Emil wins tickets to the Formula One Grand Prix in a TV competition, he has no choice but to ask his cousin Roman to drive him there. He can't drive. Little do either of them know that the local trouble magnet, the top supplier of stolen cars and Roman's prison friend Štětka, is about to pounce.

Ice Mother

After her husband's death, Hana lives on alone in the family villa. Her two sons visit her with their families, but these visits frequently end in quarrels. When Hana meets Brona, a hardy fellow, inured to winter swimming, a new world opens before her. Brona's team-mates absorb her into their team and Hana gradually learns to overcome her fear of icy water. Her relation with Brona grows into love.

The Magic Quill

The devil's magic quill keeps a tight record of sins. But when this precious artifact is stolen, a demon must find a way to make things right again.

Expulsion from Paradise

Philosophical movie, staged at the least philosophical environment imaginable: A closed scenery of a nudist spot, where some hired Czech stuff is making a plain erotic movie for a rich Russian producer. Nothing in this movie is what it seems to be at the first superficial glance.

Divadlo Komedie 2002-2012

What was the iconic theater scene and its creators like? The final stage of the Prague Chamber Theater, which provoked, shocked, and fascinated audiences for ten seasons at the Komedie Theater.

Sráči

Two police detectives, one a rookie and the other an experienced veteran, are far from clean. They are pursuing two criminals who are robbing small post offices and bank branches. During the raid and shootout, the rookie shoots one of the robbers. This changes his whole life. He is investigated by the Ministry of the Interior, leaves the police force, struggles to find work, his wife leaves him, and he starts drinking. Even his experienced colleague turns his back on him. Meanwhile, the robber who survived the shootout is planning a "big heist" with a recently released prisoner – an attack on a money transport. But this gang has no idea that they are being watched by the older of the two police officers...

Prezident Blaník

Tonda Blaník announced his presidential candidacy, promising, for example, butter and lithium for every family or corruption accessible to all, and even collected 100,000 signatures. However, he ultimately did not submit his candidacy for the presidency when his assistant Žížala failed to deliver the signature sheets to the Ministry of the Interior on time. Nevertheless, Tonda Blaník continues in his efforts to save the Czech Republic and show its inhabitants how to live better. The feature film follows on from the successful series Kancelář Blaník.

Kolya

After a fictitious marriage with a Russian emigrant, Cellisten Louka, a Czech man, must suddenly take responsibility for her son. However, it’s not long before the communication barrier is broken between the two new family members.