They returned home to Czechoslovakia, believing that the long-awaited peace would come. However, history decided otherwise. Over two and a half thousand pilots served in the uniforms of the British Royal Air Force. Heroes to the British, who helped decide the outcome of the war, they were tried for treason in our country after the war... The Ballad of a Pilot takes place in late summer 1945 and early 1946, a time of euphoria over the newly acquired peace, when the network of interpersonal relationships, shattered by the war, began to reform. At first, it was thought that the First Republic democracy would take over the government, but the fate of Czechoslovakia turned out differently.
During an unsuccessful burglary attempt, Jaroslav accidentally kills his old neighbour. His wife, Dana, concocts a plan to make the murder seem like an accident. Another neighbour stands in the way, however, whom they also have to eliminate. Dana convinces Jaroslav to help her. They attempt to use this incident to solve some of their financial problems. With the vision of easy money, the Stodolas start killing elderly people. Initially, they proceed to cover up the murders as accidents or suicide and the police do not do much to prove it otherwise.
Smoke was the Czech Rolling Stones. However, under unclear circumstances, they broke up in 1972, and each of the four former musicians came to terms with their fate as retired rockers in their own way. Each of them now has their own life and their own story. And their motives for reviving the band Smoke are also different—money, a desire for lost fame, a desire to help a friend, or to really let loose one more time. Their worlds collide and they begin to enjoy music, friendship, and life on and off stage. Not only the band members, but everyone around them is in for a lot of fun and often very surprising and comical situations. And finally, one big mystery is solved - why the band broke up in the first place.
Brothers Grass and Cobra Snake, in their late and early thirties respectively, live in a small Czech town not far from Prague. Coming from a disfunctional family, they both feel unable to build up a life to be satisfied with. Grass, unemployed and still without a girl, does not know how to escape from the shadow of his druggie and troublemaker brother Cobra. Things seem to change for Grass when all at once he gets the opportunity to be part of a promising business and starts a relationship with the waitress of a local pub. It is just then when Cobra and his addiction show up in his life once more to put him on the verge of losing everything he achieved. But this time Grass is determined to not let anybody or anything stop his last chance in life to be happy and he decides to teach his brother a life lesson he should never forget.... A lesson that uncontrollably turns into a nightmare...
Dostoevsky’s latter-day opus about the siblings and their father is among the masterpieces of world literature. It asks profound questions about ethics and religion. Is there a God? Does the devil exist? Is everything allowed because we live in a world without morality? And if so, does patricide even constitute a crime? One of the most interesting adaptations of the material is The Karamazovs by Czech director Petr Zelenka. We witness a group of thesps from Prague on a trip to Krakow in Poland to stage the novel as a play in a derelict steelworks as part of the Closer to Life Festival. The project, however, is born under the bad sign, apparently doomed from the start. When they arrive, the roof is about to cave in, so that the actors are told to wear safety helmets. Their sole consistent audience is a laborer (Andrzej Mastalerz) who rather follows each dress rehearsal than watching over his seven-year-old son who has suffered a tragic accident in the factory.
A little girl and a socialist orphanage. It is a strict children’s institution. How to overcome fears, insecurity and loneliness? To do this, the girl creates another self to talk to and argue with. And, of course, the dream of America where everything is beautiful and good. Where her father lives and waits for her. A girl and her foster family. There’s plenty of everything, but it doesn’t feel right. Emma’s trials don’t end there. Again and again, she must find the strength to hope, the stamina to live.
The next installment in a loose series about Renata Soukupová, first a girl and now a young woman. Renata, currently living in Paris, makes another return to the Czech Republic: a man comes to pick her up, and she decides to give him her love and trust. We know him from previous episodes; he is a former dissident named Holý, and he and Renata have always been attracted to each other. Renata realizes that he is finally the man with whom she would like to have a family. But Holý does not want children...
Thirtysomethings Linda, Radim, Tonda, Otakar, Dagmara and Silvie have been friends since they met as teenagers. All of them arrived in the big city, Prague, from their small home town. The euphoric dreams each had for themselves have not materialized and they are all starting to feel trapped in different ways. They all seem to know one thing: what they don't want in life. At a party back in their home town they reminisce over one of their early dreams: to buy a farm, live together and, most importantly, have fun with their lives. In the weeks that follow, each of them is faced with a crisis that brings this old dream into sharper, more sober focus. Can they make it a working reality? Do they really want to?
"Power is sweetest when it is completely disproportionate – when a fool rules over the wise..." Kundera's play reveals in a farcical, even sarcastic way what drives people. For some, the most important thing is to submit and have peace of mind, while others need power over others to live. Milan Kundera says of his comedy Ptákovina that "it is a comedy so frivolous that it is more than a comedy: it is nonsense." Its intricate plot is set in motion by the Director, who draws a rhombus on the blackboard in the classroom. And it is discovered. An investigation ensues, and the all-powerful man of the city, the Chairman, also enters the game. This myth-shrouded comedy was only performed briefly in our country in 1969, and since then no one has officially seen it here. Until September 2008, when director Ladislav Smoček staged it at the Činoherní klub in Prague.
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.
For 18-year-old Roman, the final high school exam means first fear and then bitter defeat, which makes him feel excluded from society. He stays at home, isolated from his surroundings, and increasingly retreats into a world of virtual communication, where words like truth and facts are just vague concepts. Unnoticed by his parents, Roman undergoes a fundamental psychological transformation into a state from which there may be no return.
Four friends, Karel, Milan, Tomáš, and Vinco, lose their jobs in Ostrava’s working-class districts and, with their livelihoods gone, struggle to redefine themselves. They launch various business ventures but lack experience, leading to repeated failures. Pressure mounts on their friendships and private lives as tensions flare. Through setbacks and mutual support, they embark on a journey of self-discovery, learning resilience, solidarity, and the true meaning of identity and camaraderie in a changing world.
In an effort to secure his new family, an insurance agent undertakes an effective raid on clients, unaware that elsewhere, a scam is being hatched against him, and apparently not just one. The speed with which problems begin to pile up relentlessly rises vertiginously, and the fall becomes uncontrollable.
After missing a train, Danny, a perpetual student, and his Spanish boyfriend must wait in an empty train station with two homophobic Czechs, who do not realise that Danny understands their every word.
The story of a barely grown man who lives as a fresh postulant before vows in a community of monks. He not only shares with his brothers their world of contemplation, but also, as a link in a long chain, he takes those persecuted by the communist regime across the border to Germany. On one night's return, he witnesses a ruthless crackdown on a group of students fleeing from a nearby village where they had been on compulsory work experience. And not only that: that night, a community of monks is also liquidated in Action K (April 1950), and the returning Christopher witnesses their transport without being able to help his comrades.
One phone call shakes Petra's life from the ground up. Her husband's fatal collapse causes Petra to become a widow from day to day. As she soon finds out, sadness and loneliness are not the only challenges she has to face.
It’s the early 1990s and 13-year-old Karolína, a gifted novice singer, is given the chance to become a member of a world-famous girls’ choir, taking her place alongside her older sister and her other rivals in the ensemble. Everything points to the fact that Karolína’s exceptional talent has caught the attention of the formidable and much admired choirmaster. This highly anticipated psychological drama calls to mind not only the notorious case of Bambini di Praga, but also other devastating situations involving the clash of innocence and abusive authority.
Based on an autobiographical novella by Ivan Olbracht, the film tells the story of Hanele Safarová, who grows up just after the First World War in a little Ruthenian schtetl which, in true Hassidic fashion, awaits the arrival of the Messiah. But Hanele decides to follow the Zionists instead. She moves to the city to prepare for her departure to the Promised Land, where she meets a successful businessman named Ivo Karadzic, who has renounced Judaism to become a free-thinker. Their love for each other doesn’t only drive Hanele’s parents to distraction, it also threatens to destroy the entire community in the schetl.