Oldřich Vízner

In 1930s Prague, a Czech cremator who firmly believes cremation relieves one from earthly suffering is drawn inexorably to Nazism.

Francin, manager of a small-town brewery, has a charming wife whose abundant blonde locks are an adornment to the town. Maryska looks ethereal but loves meat and beer, while Francin is an ascetic. The strict members of the brewery board of directors come to audit the accounts, but are diverted from concentrating on Francin's detailed reports by Maryska, who has organized a pig-killing feast and is ably assisting the butcher. When she invites the old curmudgeons on the board to enjoy the fresh pork, they are too happy to agree. Francin doesn't know whether he is going to get a permanent contract. To make things worse his brother Pepin - eccentric, noisy and garrulous - turns up on an indefinite visit.

Viktor Průcha, a successful small-town architect, lives well but knows his comfort rests on compromises. When an elderly man—whose granddaughter was hurt at a school Viktor approved beside a busy road—attacks him and then takes his own life, Viktor abandons his home for a rural studio. There he rediscovers nude photography; his acclaimed exhibition forces him to confront past concessions and choose his future.

Saturnin is a servant who becomes his master's master. A young man of good social standing and upbringing, somewhat conservative, acquires, through no fault of his own, a servant named Saturnin. Saturnin effectively becomes his employer's master and causes a series of surprising twists and situations in his previously peaceful life. Without Saturnin, these would be difficult to manage. If only because without him, they would probably never have happened.

The main characters are a young psychologist Doubravka and a village youth, Honza Macháček. He is a tractor driver who temporarily lost his driver's license in a crazy bet, so he now herds a cooperative herd of cows, she is at the cottage with her boy Boba, who is not very successful in studying medicine and is currently preparing for his remedial exams. Honza's immediacy, optimism and approach to life and work contrast sharply with the selfish, weak-willed and unbalanced Boba, and Doubravka increasingly realizes that her feelings for Boba have disappeared and that she actually loves Honza. The question is how her somewhat conservative family will view such a game.

Unlike any other opera, the so-called Beggar's Opera is not just one composition, but a lineage of adapted compositions, beginning with the original hugely successful 1728 political satire written by Englishman John Gay. Composers and writers have penned variations on it ever since. The most famous of these was A Threepenny Opera by Bertholt Brecht and Kurt Weill. Some things these compositions share in common is their setting among the poor and criminal classes, and the roguish character Macheath. This production is based on an adaptation of Gay's original by Vaclav Havel the freedom-fighter, writer and philosopher who became the first (and only) president of the united post-communist country of Czechoslovakia, and it retains many traces of its theatrical origins. Film reviewers were not too tolerant of what they called "slavish adherence" to the noted Czech writer's stage production, but theater, philosophy and history buffs may feel otherwise.

A group of soldiers is supposed to ensure the smooth nighttime passage of the military convoy through Prague, but things turn out differently. Eloquent young men convince the good-natured commander to sign a leave of absence, and the main character is left alone in the middle of a housing estate...

The king of a small kingdom intends to pass the throne to his firstborn, but foolish prince Fintín. However, his subjects adore the cute and clever princess Pusinka. Unfortunately, the evil elf Pižlík also has his eye on her, and his power grows in proportion to the foolishness at the royal court. He is looking forward to marrying her, turning all his subjects into tiny people, and becoming their tiny ruler. The wizard Fuk and his apprentice Kuklík can no longer stand by and watch, and decide to help the kingdom. At that time, the pear of wisdom ripens in the royal garden, the only one in a hundred years. What will Fuk's confusion cause when he gives the magic pear to the poor young man Drátařík instead of the prince?