Barbora Leichnerová

Jen o rodinných záležitostech

Life in communist Czechoslovakia in the early 1950s and the punishments for going against the state.

The Beggar's Opera

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.

Strange Airlines

A woman discovers a conspiracy while searching for her missing travel companion.

Piloti

Further east of the Dark Blue Sky, where the Heavenly Horsemen fought, the story of a Czechoslovakian fighter squadron takes place, to which Second Lieutenant Jandak arrives as a rookie. He then experiences both his first love and a battle high above the clouds in the collective of combat pilots. Combat pilots on the Eastern Front thus experience similar stories to their Western colleagues, with the same goals and plans and the same slim prospects of survival in their daily life-and-death battles. Not surprisingly, they fought at a time when they had a common enemy, characterised by the Messerschmitt aircraft.

Hotýlek v srdci Evropy

This comedy starring Miroslav Donutil tells the story of an American of Czech origin who returns to his homeland in the 1990s. At his parents' request, he is supposed to take over the family hotel in Prague and find a Czech bride. However, he has no idea what he will have to endure in the atmosphere of the 1990s, what condition he will find the property in, or what tragicomic situations he will have to go through before someone deprives him of his property. But in the end, he finds a girl who, unbeknownst to her, comes from the same background as him.

It's Not Me

The two heroes of the film's story - the decent but dry engineer Zárub and the marriage swindler Majer - are granted this wish by the mysterious forces of the moon. The two men change their appearance, which, however, contrasts sharply with their unchanged characters and voices. The incomprehensible swap naturally becomes the source of many comic plots and situations.

The End of Old Times

Czechoslovakia 1918. The newly formed National Assembly has made Stoklasa the administrator of the Kratochvile Castle. Although with no aristocratic background, he is a man of fortune and is trying to buy the castle. To impress his neighbors and the local politicians he invites them to a great hunting party. Uninvited comes a man who claims to be Duke Alexej. Stoklasa believes him to be a hustler. This hustler, however, manages to charm all the women before he leaves.

Waiting For Patrick

Helenka, a textile industrial student, invents an ideal man who is the envy of all her friends. The dreamy and delusional Helenka resists her complexes with an imaginary lover, her more realistic friend Zuzka would also prefer the dreamy Patrik, but in the end she will probably be happy with the less ideal Honza, and the self-confident vulgar nymphomaniac Sylva flies from one lover to another like a butterfly, finally as she was the only one waiting for her dream Patrick.