Lucie Žáčková

It’s the early 1990s and 13-year-old Valerie, 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 Valerie’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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.