Evald Schorm

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 group of the bourgeois head for a prominent figure's birthday party. As they venture through the woods and have a picnic, they're suddenly surrounded by some suspicious strangers.

Mr. Dezső and Rezső are selecting the heroes for their new operetta. They represent different tastes and styles, and keep arguing about the casting of the four men and four women.

A short documentary about the work of railwaymen and life on the railway.

A stuffy middle-aged foreigner, a businessman named Fabricius, lonely and looking for a night's diversion, finds it in the form of a mysterious blonde. In an abandoned cemetery, she tells him three tales involving black magic and erotic obsession. In "The Last Golem," a young rabbi struggles to fashion a massive, silent giant out of living clay — until he's distracted by a mute servant girl. In the second episode, "Bread Slippers," an 18th-century countess indulges her passion for sweet cakes, adulterous affairs, and secret kisses with pretty maids until a mysterious visitor whisks her away to an abandoned mansion, where Fate has a different kind of dance in store for her. And in the final story, "Poisoned Poisoner," a ravishing murderess in the Middle Ages dispatches lecherous merchants to the tune of upbeat '60s Czech pop songs.

A quintet of vignettes based on short stories by Bohumil Hrabal: an eventful trip to the motorcycle races results in drunkenness, long-winded discussions, and death; two elderly men create false biographies; insurance agents visit an eccentric painter/goat farmer and his mother; guests at a wedding reception remain oblivious to outlying misery; and a working-class boy romances a Roma girl.

In the 1950s, Ludvik Jahn was expelled from the Communist Party and the University by his fellow students, because of a politically incorrect note he sent to his girlfriend. Fifteen years later, he tries to get his revenge by seducing Helena, the wife of one of his accusers.

The first short story "Naked in the Thorns" tells the story of a man whose clothes were taken away by a dog during his bath in the river. In the second short story "Games of Love", a retired professor paints a biblical scene of Susan and the old man. In the last short story, "Fidelity", the dog Argos perishes while defending his beloved master.