Helena Nováčková

Three hundred years after she fled the Witch Academy for love, Saxána has settled into a comfortable human life with her husband and daughter, until her curious little girl, Saxánka, uncovers her mother’s hidden magical past and is whisked away to the Fairy Realm. There, amid dwarfs, dragons, and mischievous spirits, Saxánka with her newfound fairy friends to unravel a tangle of enchanted dangers and stop the comic-book gangster Crashman from plunging the realm into ruin.

This film, chronicling the last days of Czech resistance fighter Maruska Kuderikova (played by Magda Vasaryova), is based on her diaries. Though she was tortured and eventually executed by the Nazis, her diaries indicate that she was optimistic for the humanity of her captors and did not by any means hate them. Told with simple dignity, this film makes clear why Maruska became a national hero.

Crazy jumps on a giant teeterboard, group dance choreography, aerial acrobatics, and trampoline flights. Gags alternate with tricks and rhythmic music with laughter, hypnotic images contrasting with summer parties under the open sky. Tradition meets modernity, seasoned pub-goers mingle with young circus blood. A total of eight acrobats, actors, and dancers flash through the performance like colorful strips in a kaleidoscope. Don't think. Open your eyes, prick up your ears, and let yourself be absorbed by a garish collage of skill and joy.