Suffering 1962 ( 6)

This is an engaging drama by director Karel Kachyna about the growing pains of a young teen (Jorga Kotrbova) and the hardships of a noble steed mistreated by a cruel neighboring farmer. The teen is having a hard time figuring out adult modes of behavior, and at the same time her heart goes out to the horse that is suffering under the treatment of the farmer next door to her family. As the teen adopts the horse as a friend, some clarification will be sure to come on the meaning of adulthood and the benefits of compassion.

Moravian Hellas 1964 ( 5.5)

Karel Vachek’s graduate film offers us a documentary essay which is both a light-hearted and aggressive little piece and also a parody of investigative film journalism. The Strážnice folk festival, backed by the cultural Party apparatus of the time, for years had little to commend itself to authentic folklore. In the film the event assumes the form of a bizarre stage spectacle with almost surrealistic elements that Vachek reinforces with unconventional approaches (commentary appearing as titles on screen, singing, declamations into the camera, feature etudes, the fusion of news coverage and fiction). The result is a stirring film collage depicting various characters, from crowd-pleasers, Easter egg decorators, kitsch artists and peddlers, to museologists and local residents, all of whom come up against the eccentric "identical” twin reporters Karel and Jan Saudek and a bored actress who appears as an extra. Using their special blend of irony and wit, they present us with the sad truth.

Elective Affinities 1968 ( 4.2)

Documentary showing the Czechoslovakian political landscape in March 1968, when president Antonin Novotny, a hardline Stalinist, stepped down and moderate communist Ludvik Svoboda was elected. Five months later, in August 68, the Prague Spring would end with the military intervention of the Warsaw Pact.

Closely Watched Trains 1966 ( 7.224)

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.

Pearls of the Deep 1966 ( 6)

A manifesto of sorts for the Czech New Wave, this five-part anthology shows off the breadth of expression and the versatility of the movement’s directors. Based on stories by the legendary writer Bohumil Hrabal, the shorts range from the surreally chilling to the caustically observant to the casually romantic, but all have a cutting, wily view of the world.

Capricious Summer 1968 ( 6.6)

Middle-aged Antonin and his friends, the major, now retired, and the canon, are in the river, swimming and philosophizing. Then it starts to rain. It just seems to be that sort of summer. Antonin runs the swimming bath with his portly wife Katherine... A man appears with his horse-drawn caravan. He lays a striped pole across the river and walks over. With a handstand and a magic trick, Ernie the Conjuror invites everyone to that evening's performance... Ernie is a tightrope walker of only modest skill, but with a slim and beautiful assistant, Anna. Antonin speaks to her. The two spend the night in the change room by the river, Antonin massaging her feet all night long. Katherine decides to move into the caravan with Ernie. But now the major and even the canon sense Anna's attractiveness...

Devatenáct klavírů 2008

Czech Television has successfully aired two TV movies detective novels by Emil Vachek: The man and the Shadow and Evil minute. In both stories of the First Republic, acting chief inspector Klubíčko detective Tchaikovsky stamping, bachelor, gourmet, collector of old prints, which played an excellent way Miroslav Donutil.

Vražda v Ostrovní ulici 1933

Detective Klubíčko is searching for the murderer of a wealthy loan shark because he is the only one who does not believe that the victim's husband, the private entrepreneur Zakhar, could be the murderer. Inconsistencies in the statements gradually lead him to the real perpetrator. He is only able to convict him with the help of a crime reconstruction...

A Night at Karlstein 1920

The Day That Shook the World 1975 ( 5.929)

An historical depiction of the events preceding the political murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, would-be emperor of the Austro-Hungarian throne, in Sarajevo on June 28th, 1914.

Tam kde hnízdí čápi 1976 ( 3)

Despite the initial mistrust of others, former glass worker Štěoán Urban becomes the founder and first chairman of the local agricultural cooperative. However, 1968 arrives and with it comes previously unexpected problems.