The eighteen-year-old young man will one day make a living as a shoemaker, but his greatest love is hang gliding, for which he is willing to sacrifice anything.
Wartime events from a child's perspective were a popular theme during the previous regime - here it is a twelve-year-old village boy who experiences dangerous situations with retreating Nazi troops in picturesque South Bohemia... Any attempt to achieve a more believable depiction is destroyed by the staging's grandeur, and in the end the result is an awkward piece, suitable at most for celebrating the relevant national holidays. A longer copy with a tragic ending is stored in the NFA. Milda is shot unnoticed by an SS major.
Karel, a young man with an unknown past, but with a defined set of values and an ideal moral code, arrives in the village in the middle of the harvest. For the ordinary, down-to-earth villagers, Karel's lifestyle is hard to understand and they simply do not accept him into their midst. The summer ends and he leaves with his message again somewhere else. Perhaps he will return here next year to try to repeat his strange mission...
Honza and Zuzana are very young husband and wife. They have a little daughter of whom willingly occasionally take care the grandparents and Honza's fifteen-year-old brother Martin. Zuzana continues studying and Honza devotes all weekends as an amateur competitor to the motor-cycles at the speedway. Zuzana is not interested in motor-cycles. Martin holds responsible for his brother's marriage and at the advice of his friend Magda, who is of the same age, invites her sister-in-law to the club of Hucul horses so that she does not feel bored. But by misfortunes and unexplained quarrels both young husband and wife start being jealous of one another.
Lying in the construction industry used to be a criminal offence, but skilful people could do a lot of things. This somewhat embarrassing tragicomedy convinces us that even builders should be honest. The protagonist here is a moral designer who occasionally drops in to sing to enjoy something other than work.
The former reputed lover and bon vivant Petr Vok from Rožmberk was widowed at the age of sixty-three. The loss of his much younger wife is hard to bear and it seems that nothing in his life will please him anymore. His loyal friends and servants do everything possible and impossible to cheer him up, but sometimes interesting situations arise, such as when they get him a guaranteed real mermaid. Will anyone be able to cure the master of his lethargy?
The future communist journalist Julius Fučík had a stimulating childhood and youth in a working-class environment, when his moral maturity was already showing. The authors of the film recall that the young Julek was a star of the suburban operetta scene, and in three episodes they depict him both in his early childhood and already at the gymnasium, when the outbreak of the World War shaped his determination.
Frank visits his friend Josef, who introduces him to his pedigree rabbits and his wife Mary. Frank is more interested in the slightly unsettling fact that Josef and Mary's garden fence is entirely made up of living people holding hands.
Five short stories: The Master and the Twentieth Disciple; Every Week is Sunday; It's Boniface's Fault; The Raggedy Song; The Spider's Web.
Lemuel Gulliver has had a car accident and continues his journey across the unknown countryside on foot. On the road he finds a dead rabbit dressed like a man and takes a watch from its waistcoat breast pocket. The half-ruined house that he enters reminds Lemuel of his childhood and brings up a painful memory of a dearly loved girl Markéta who was drowned years ago. Gulliver finds himself in Balnibarbi, a country where he doesn't understand the laws and habits and so continually offends against public decency. It is a day when people are ordered to keep their mouths shut and they force their visitor to follow suit. He faces harsh interrogation and finds it difficult to explain that he is not the rabbit Oscar whose watch has been found in his possession.
Little Vendulka receives a birthday gift of a seemingly innocuous children's book. Little she knows that the book is actually a portal into the surreal world of nursery rhymes and Josef Lada's paintings.
Matěj Hůrka, a teenage bricklayer's apprentice, a young man who is delicate in matters of love, lives with his grandmother in a country cottage. He struggles with love problems, but waits in vain for some advice as his vivacious grandmother remarries an equally vivacious pensioner. The enterprising eldest generation thus contrasts to some extent with the youth, which is embarrassed.
Set in a wintry, haunting Prague, the mysterious Piper arrives at New Year’s Eve in a red car and meets Agnes and Kristian, who are struggling with social rejection and a pending marriage. Using his magical flute, he purges the city of rats—and later, corrupted townspeople—demanding a personal sacrifice in return for love and redemption.
At a village railway station in occupied Czechoslovakia, a bumbling dispatcher’s apprentice longs to liberate himself from his virginity. Oblivious to the war and the resistance that surrounds him, this young man embarks on a journey of sexual awakening and self-discovery, encountering a universe of frustration, eroticism, and adventure within his sleepy backwater depot.
The protagonist (Rudolf Hrusinsky) is a dull, fat, shy government clerk indulging in voyuerism and ego fantasies. In love with another clerk (Kveta Fiolova), he is urged on in his pursuit by a commiserate executive. The story is told in a flashback sequence as the cuckolded Hrusinsky attempts suicide by gassing himself in his bathtub. The "Murder" of the title is not a murder as such, rather the murder that Hrusinsky remembers planning upon discovering his wife's unfaithfulness with his supposed friend and advisor. Both plots failing in his mind, he loses himself in fantastic reveries of his funeral and of hypocritical mourners. ' Deciding (perhaps) that this is not the way out either, he gives up the attempt and imagines a life of reconciliation and eventual affluence.
A gifted poet checks into a Gothic hotel in hopes of meeting the woman with whom he has long been enamored. He is surrounded by a variety of offbeat characters like the hefty homosexual cook, shadowy clerks, snooty waiters, and valets prone to violence. He finally meets the woman of his dreams only to lose her and ultimately meet with tragedy.
A comedy about two bumbling policemen investigating an alleged rape in a small Czech town. One of the alleged rapists is supposed to get married the day he's locked up.
Cast out by his father, young Ondrej joins the Order of the Teutonic Knights, where he is raised by strict monk Armin. After years of hardship, Ondrej escapes from the Order when he is wrongly punished, and sets out for his former home. Arriving to discover his father to be dead, Ondrej now not only assumes control of his father's properties, but seeks to marry his former stepmother.
The invincible agent Cyril Juan Borguette alias W4C has been assigned a mission to go to a hotel in Prague, get hold of a saltcellar with a plan for the military exploitation of Venus hidden in it, and hand it over to the beautiful agent Alice. He will have to compete for the saltcellar with other agents working for the world's various greater and smaller powers. The head of the Prague counter-intelligence unit gets news of agent W4C's mission. Deficient in personnel, he nominates accountant Foustka as agent 13B. Mr Foustka takes his dog Pajda with him and the two head for the airport. Pajda helps him track down agent W4C in a classy hotel that becomes the battleground for the interests and plans of the secret agents from different countries, each trying to get hold of the precious saltcellar.
Mikolás and his brother Adam end up with a young German hostage of noble blood during a robbery. While their clan prepares for the wrath of the German king, Mikolás is sent to pressure his neighbor Lazar into a defense pact. Persuasion fails and he abducts Lazar's daughter Marketa on the eve of her initiation as a nun in an act of vengeance.
Mr. Benda, a married father of two children, works for a company that liquidates old banknotes. After one drunken party, he is visited by a painter who tattooed his back in drunkenness the previous night. The image tattooed on Benda’s back is considered the painter’s best work by the professionals.
After a soldier cuts off the arm of king's cousin, king decides to deactivate the army. Of course, generals don't like it at all and they try to kill the king. The assassin should be artificial body in the shape of actress Evelina Keleti and with brain of psychotic serial killer Fany Stubová. They also manage to kill king's astrologer Stuart Hampl, who warns the king. Accidentally, Hampl's brain is implanted into assassin's body, actress Keleti is killed and chaos begins.
Three detective stories, three different views of life and death... Collection of three horror short stories.
Joseph Sheridan le Fanu's tale, "Inn at the Flying Dragon," brings dark fantasy, ghostly apparitions, and mysteries to the TV screen. It's part of his well-known collection, "The Dark Mirror," published a century ago, yet still captivating readers today. Bohumila Zelenková drew inspiration from this novella, not just for its mysterious and romantic elements but also for the characters' intriguing portrayal of the post-Napoleon era—a time when many sought greatness, even if it meant embracing deception.
In 1757, the second year of the Seven Years' War, Frederick II the Great stands at the gates of Prague. He has been trying to take the city for weeks, as the enemy commander Duke Charles of Lorraine is inside. Frederick has just defeated him, but the tide could soon turn against the Prussians, as new Austrian troops are approaching. None other than the famous master thief Andreas Christian Käsebier is to sneak into Prague to open the gates from the inside. As a reward, the king promises him freedom. Käsebier accepts the offer because he is tempted to steal an entire city. But by chance, Käsebier learns that the king wants to betray him. After a successful battle, he is put back behind bars for life. This doesn't suit the master thief at all, especially as he has just fallen in love with Katka in Prague.
A coming of age drama about a young boy Jirka who lives in Prague.
The lead character is a young woman who becomes close with a colleague of her husband. She finds herself at an important crossroad in life and considers whether to take a decisive step.
A quarrel between divorced waitress Mája and her fifteen-year-old son Petr ends with the boy physically attacking his mother, and he is sent to an institution for juvenile delinquents.
The film from 1976, a film that is exemplary in its devotion to the canons of normalised cinema, is the work of director Stanislav Strnad. He brought to life the script of an unusual author - the secretary of the SČDU, Arno Kraus - in this psychological drama. The protagonist of the story also has his cadre materials in order according to the requirements of the time - he is a worker director Kabát, who besides problems at the workplace also copes successfully with difficulties in his private life - a break-up with his wife.
Three short stories ("Zelenáči 1945", "Silvestr 1948" and "Zimní vítr 1951") about members of the SNB units guarding the Šumava border in the post-war years. Ivo Toman had artistic supervision over the debutants. The theme of the third short story was made in 1959 for the film "Entry Forbidden" by František Vláčil, who was also starting at the time.
Czechoslovak comedy film directed by Ladislav Smoljak, about the fictional national hero Jára Cimrman (universal genius, inventor, sportsman, criminalist, poet, writer and philosopher).
A colour-printed melodramatic selanca from the beginnings of the organised labour movement in Bohemia... Antonín Zápotocký, the second workers' president, is the author of the literary novel Rozbřesk - the plot is said to be inspired by the fate of his grandmother and mother.
The fantastic world of little Thomas, who conjured up beauty and happiness.
A dramatic episode from the life of Czech philologist and historian Josef Dobrovský, a leading figure of the national revival.
The idea of mystery unites the three debut stories - the original Bermuda Triangle with its mysterious phenomena has begun to shift and can be traced anywhere in the world, including Czech and Slovak territory. Here, too, unexplained shifts in space and time occur. This idea is supported by the aforementioned short stories, but the inventiveness of the subject matter and staging is very heavy-handed, and the film passed through the cinemas without much interest.
Olda Raška, a novice pilot, is going through an emotional crisis that will greatly affect his professional abilities. Only thanks to the understanding of his superiors will he realise his shortcomings and overcome the crisis. While he begins his life's journey, the experienced pilot Lieutenant Colonel Lošťák has to quit flying for health reasons. The film is very skillfully crafted and attractive for its time, mainly due to the unique aerial shots and behind-the-scenes sequences from the airport.
A Czech psychological film about the school of life, its sorrows and beauties. The main character is a young aspiring nurse Marie Sahulová, who, after a trouble in the hospital - she secretly brought a boy to her boarding school - is transferred to a rural health centre, where together with an old doctor and a peculiar nurse she has to travel around twenty-five villages and a number of solitudes in the harsh environment of the neglected villages of the 1950s. The nurse, a wise and experienced woman whom no one calls anything other than "babi", becomes her guide, who introduces her to the practice and the pitfalls of private life in a distinctive way. In the mosaic of everyday worries and more or less serious medical interventions, Marie matures and finds the meaning of her work and life.
Engineer Pavel Hnyk is successful at work, but not very happy in his private life. He is approaching his fiftieth birthday and he can't shake the feeling that life is slipping away from him. The most effective medicine for such woes is amorous adventures, and Pavel indulges in them. His wife Alice is a lawyer by profession, so she knows about such cases, and because she is a wise woman, she passes them over in silence. One day, however, a new colleague appears at Pavel's workplace - the charming Slovakian Julie. A friendly relationship soon turns into a love affair, and over time it grows into a headless, destructive passion that cares for nothing and no one...
This light comedy finds a Czech taxi driver taking his family on a weekend outing in the country. His wife, daughter-in-law, son and two grandchildren are the passengers who disturb the solitude of two young lovers. While the women attend the horse races, the father sits home getting drunk and watching football. The overweight daughter-in-law is upset because she has blown her chances to become a ballerina. All members of the family are caught up in their own individual problems in this realistically portrayed family comedy
Fifteen-year-old Kateřina will once again spend the holidays at the Castle Krabonoš, where her parents are both wardens. She finds it dull because she's got to sit at the castle's ticket office and sell tickets. That is, until the arrival of the new tour guide, Petr, a young history student. She falls in love at first sight. But for Petr she's just a young crazy girl. Katka tries to get Petr's attention in various ways, but all in vain. She makes a last ditch effort by pretending to steal some rare castle steins from the castle's collection. It's only after some detectives arrive that Katka realizes that she may have overdone it, but she finally manages to get Petr to notice her.
Sixth-grade pupil Katka daydreams during a math class about being Snow White and being freed by a prince who looks very much like Dzery from the eighth grade. Katka, her girl friends Lenka and Martina, and her fellow-pupils Franta, Joska and freckled Vrabcák, have spent five years going to the same little one-class school in their home mountain village of Pastvina. Their kind teacher Smetácek was very understanding about their games and fantasies, but he didn't teach them much about arithmetic. They are now laughed at for their ignorance by the strict Bidlo, their new teacher at the near-by little town. As he does every year, Smetácek is preparing a theatre performance with the local children. Katka suggests the fairytale about Snow White
Approaches to important life values can vary: while the top athlete who has made it in cycling tries to monetise his talent, his brother cannot devote himself to his beloved sculpture because of his disabled arm and seeks alternative self-fulfilment. Moreover, the two are united - and at the same time divided - by a love affair with the same woman.
The husband and wife Ludva and Hedus Homolkas with their twins Péta and Máta and Ludva's parents - the granny and grandpa - arrive in the snowy Spindleruv Mlýn for a holiday. They promise to each other that they will not spoil the quite expensive holiday by quarrels. If somebody hurts the other one he/she will kneel as a punishment.
The Homolka family celebrates a great occasion: they were finally able to buy a car. They immediately begin to drive for small trips to Hradcany, to the airport, and plan further trips. Their euphoria is spoiled by a letter from their great-grandmother. Their great-grandfather is dying and the family is expected to come along to say goodbye. The annoyed Homolkas therefore set off to the South Bohemian village where the grandparents live.
In defiance of all the laws of physics Mr. Tau is walking on the wing of an aircraft flying close to Prague. Young Alenka is enthusiastic, but the other passengers are horrified. The security inspector Málek believes the report from the crew to be a code alerting him to a hijack, and orders an emergency landing. In the confusion at the airport the fairytale Mr. Tau disappears into one of the halls.
In 18th century Bohemia, the mercenary troops of a cruel duke roam the countryside. A cap maker who defends himself against injustice is thrown into prison. His ten-year-old son tries to free his father with the help of his friends of the same age and a magic cap, but the duke's henchmen are soon after the magic cap.
Life in communist Czechoslovakia in the early 1950s and the punishments for going against the state.
A man breaks into a large, seemingly abandoned old house to plunder the gold received. But the house is really abandoned?
A sincere provincial young man, Frantisek Koudelka leaves to work in Prague. For the trip he buys a computer made horoscope with biorhythms charts, marked according to his date of birth, there are trappy, precarious, unsuccessful and even critical days and few successful days. The clumsy luckless person Frantisek has finally a guidance for his life.
The theft of a pearl necklace and subsequent murder took place at the Tartaros cabaret. All this could compromise the minister, who is an admirer of the singer Clara. The real culprits must be found as soon as possible...
Even though we no longer believe in supernatural beings, all sorts of hejkals, hastrmans, melodnicas and fairies, we are still interested in how they fare in fairy tales. In today's fairy tale, the fairy Rokytka fell in love with an earthly young man and who knows how their love would have turned out if it weren't for the magic hidden in what at first glance are ordinary rings from a pilgrimage.
The story of four men who were arrested in a random raid on a small-town hotel during the Nazi occupation and taken to a school classroom. They don't know why or for how long. They are waiting for interrogation and, fearing possible accusation and punishment, try to prepare an alibi. Fear also affects their characters, which change under the stress, and eventually the one who is the fairest but softest of the two is insulted...
A modern fairy tale that combines fairy tale elements with contemporary realities and is also a film about film. The story takes place in a Barrandov studio. Nine-year-old Marushka reads a term paper at school about how she went on a field trip to the film studios with her class and how she met a "real" black priest, who was, however, terribly forgetful. She and her friend Honzik got their hands on his magic sphere, which made all sorts of incredible things happen...
The hero, rushing from one misfortune to another, is former accountant Řehoř Maršíček, who after a heart attack, out of fear of death, decides to live a calm, moderate life and follow the principles of a healthy lifestyle. Not to smoke, not to drink, to exercise and eat healthily. He takes up the position of an auditor of patients and hopes that he will have peace in his new job. Instead, he experiences one nervous breakdown after another. He gradually makes one good resolution after another. Řehoř falls into unhealthy food, alcohol and women. In addition, he gradually loses most of his life's certainties, including a roof over his head. The result is a second heart attack, after which the hero promises himself again that he will fix everything and live a healthy life.
Stage mime Antoine Moreau is compelled by the Gestapo to put on a performance for the children of Terezin, a "model" concentration camp, to convince the Red Cross observers that the camp is truly what it seems. Reluctant at first, Moreau slowly learns the true nature of the camp, including the meaning of the "transports" on which people leave. With a world-class orchestra (made up of people interned in the camp) and a cast of children, Moreau stages a show to end all shows.
The opera lady singer Ema Destinnová is in all her splendor at the American stages. But in Europe there rages war and she decides to return home to Bohemia.
The story takes place in the Czech-German border region in 1938. The hero Tomás Jakl marries but the marriage is not very lucky and falls apart. His German friend forced him to enter the Nazi party.
Sonya is the heiress to the riches of a Czech noble family—the Hajns. Petr, a social climber marries her, ignoring some shady goings-on—in particular, an insane uncle who prowls the mansion believing himself invisible, a peccadillo the family indulges. The uncle’s stalking every corner of the house, popping out of cupboards and out from behind curtains slowly takes its toll on the young bride.
A story about young girl Betka who is looking for a magic creature - Plivnik.
The fate of an unlucky director of a dismantled cultural house who temporarily believes in the meaningfulness of his actions, exposed to the pressure of many different difficulties.
Shot in B&W, Gyula Gazdag's film follows the surreal and often comic quests of young Andris, an orphan searching for a father who doesn't exist, and Orban, a government clerk who's had enough of oppressive bureaucracy.
Three short stories. Prague finally sees the approval of the subway construction. Thousands of individuals took part in preparing, course and finalizing construction of subway and their lives crossed at certain points of this construction.
When he returns to Prague from a stint in the Army, Lada does not seem to fit in anywhere, and he cannot get the hang of the system of deliberately underperforming on the job. His girlfriend tries to keep him in the city with a variety of stratagems, but he eventually takes a job as a truck driver on a dam-building project. He uses the truck to visit his girl on weekends. Ingenuous, he is unaware that the truck is being used for black-market smuggling, and that his girlfriend two-times on him when he cannot arrange to leave on time for his weekend.
People can be addicted to things, like high-calorie food. But the struggle against overweight and overeating is often futile, so the unfortunates have no choice but to lose weight under the guidance of experts - and they don't mind that the conditions in the sanatorium in question are quite oppressive and humiliating. Although, with a lot of good will, one could detect some metaphorical elements, the bitter comedy, reveling in naive stylisation, ultimately wants to be nothing more than an entertaining piece of work.
Schoolboys discover that if sitting in a certain rocky cliff area in the forest, they can memorize anything they read there for exams the following day. Turns out the rocky cliff has a cave in which they make an incredible discovery.
Zdeněk Zaoral began filming this film in semi-amateur conditions, but it was eventually completed in a Zlín studio and released in cinemas. At its time, in the second half of the 1980s, it was the first completely open and also unusually raw statement about the course and consequences of drug addiction. The story of an eighteen-year-old girl who tries to escape her habit shows documentary values - both in the staging and in the speech of the individual characters, in the authenticity of the drug-addicted environment.
The juxtaposition of animals locked in cages in a zoo and people shackled by the confinement of the city has not lost its impact to this day. The amorous enchantment, passing and bonding of the two protagonists, a young conservationist and a paleontologist, takes place against a backdrop of subtly affected period realities. The debuting filmmakers, screenwriter Jaroslav Vanča and director Václav Křístek, have attempted to spice up the story with the character of a mysterious man who turns out to be the writer of the events just narrated.
The director Ivan Balaďa was not allowed to finish this gloomy, black-and-white parable, inspired by Chekhov's short story Pavilion No. 6 - only after the fall of communism, more than twenty years later, did the film hit the cinema screens, unfortunately to negligible acclaim. In fact, it is only now that we can fully enjoy the story of an aging, increasingly exhausted mental institution doctor who is inexorably sinking to the level of his patients.
At the beginning was the Slovak television series Lekár umierajúceho czasu (Doctor of Dying Time), dedicated to the Rudolphine-era scientist Jan Jesenius. He ended up on the scaffold along with other gentlemen after losing the anti-Habsburg uprising. When director Miloslav Luther conceived the idea of making an abridged version of the footage for cinema, he had to not only rebuild the storyline but also dub it into Czech. However, the result was only an illustrative puzzle, describing the various stages of the hero's turbulent life.
Twenty-one years (1968 - 1989) in the life of violinist Jan, whose life and social situation forced him to make compromises and personal concessions.
A recording of a theatre production directed by Jan Kačer from 1967.
