Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly

A darkly brilliant stop-motion adaptation of The Pied Piper of Hamelin about a plague of rats that punish townsfolk corrupt with greed. One of the most ambitious Czech animation projects of the 1980s, notable for its unusual dark art direction, innovative animation techniques and use of a fictitious language.

It is for the first time to see Pat and Mat enjoying the winter. How will they handle the decoration of their houses for he Christmas, and what presents will they found under the Christmas tree. And do they have the same Christmas tree as we know, or will they make their special one. How will the solve the snow calamity and what a new machine will they make? After having fun in the snow the hot sauna would be perfect so lets build it. And how do they celebrate the end of the year?

In a city destroyed by war, a boy collects broken toys to replace his friends and family. One day he finds a Christmas gift and runs away. Based on the last script by Bretislav Pojar.

A praised war hero leaves his wife and finds a new love from Ural.

The Song of the Gallows is based on a medieval, seventeenth-century story about a magic violin that saves the life of a Roma man from the gallows. The Polish princess Katarina Jagellonica arrives in Finland in order to get married to Duke Juhana; after listening to the Romani musician playing his instrument she agrees to his request that all the gallows should be torn down in the country to save the Roma from execution.

On summer vacation a young teenager finds himself hanging out alone on the streets of his neighbourhood, all his friends having gone to the country with their parents. Near his home he meets a disturbing character, a drug pusher looking for clients, who introduces him to an artificial paradise. The teenager discovers a seductive and terrifying world that frequently draws him back to his neighbour.

A young boy dreams of becoming a professional footballer and playing in the biggest stadiums, but before he can do this he has to win a match in a little yard, against a goose.

Mire bala kale hin, (which means the girl with the long black hair in Romanes) was the first TV programme ever produced as a childrens program about the Roma minority in Czech Republic. It is a co-production between Finnish/ Czech/Netherlands television. The story is about a Roma girl, who is told Roma stories, legends, dreams, fairy-tales and true stories. Beside the Czech and Finnish also an english version had been produced.

Katariina Lillqvist's puppet animation is a ballad about 18th century St. Petersburg, Catherine the Great's magnificent courtyard and the dim taverns of the suburbs.

Jan Balej's animated film One Night in One City (2007) from the Czech Republic. Very little dialogue throughout, but instead a rich world of sounds and music which more than match the detailed animation and curious vignettes that create the film.

Laid-off old mannequins spend their cracked and broken lives in an old, abandoned warehouse. New mannequins are brought to the warehouse. They are old as well, but from a younger generation. The two groups must live together, but it's not easy at all.

The clumsy Pat and Mat are back in their movie Buurman & Buurman, experimenteren er op los! The two men face all kinds of challenges. For example, Pat and Mat try to bake pancakes in a hilarious way, they try to catch the apple thief by securing the apple trees and they even experiment with a homemade flying machine! And well, why would you go to a car wash when you can build one yourself? It only makes the car a bit dirtier ... All in all, experimenting is not easy for the neighbors, which means that this time and again things are going wrong ...

In a remote East European town, the evening bells can’t hide the cry of a hungry baby. His father, a street-musician named Baro, is also having a bad day. The social worker is blaming him on being a miserable parent, but Baro refuses to obey the advice of the worker: he definitely won’t put his little one into the BabyBox.

This animated puppet film based on Russian folk tales tells the story of the hero Svätohor and his battle with the dragon Goryn Gorynych.

The picture, unlike the other film adaptations of the story, focuses much more on Crusoe’s life before and after his stay on the island. Following the principle of setting the novel right, it describes Crusoe’s experiences with delicate irony and understanding.

A fairy-tale about a brave, self-sacrificial and faithful girl named Maryska who sets free an enchanted princess and her twelve maids from a mysterious castle.

When the village school master discovers the body of a mean-spirited, miserly old woman, with whom he has had a disagreement, he decides to dispose of the body himself without alerting anyone else to it, but when the body is discovered by another villager the same cycle begins again, with the body eventually passing through the hands of half of the village.

The film is set in the near future, in a world of perfect capitalism. Society is sustained by a class of top achievers; meanwhile, so-called minimum recipients live under sedation in Fortresses of Sleep. The great majority of top achievers view themselves as happy. An outsourced agency has been established for the rest: Life Guidance is charged with turning these individuals into optimal people as well. Alexander has internalized the system but one wrong word to his child triggers Life Guidance. He starts to rebel and encounters the horror of the system in all its brightness and affability.

A film story based on the old Prague legends. It tells about a poor student lured by wealth, which he prefers to knowledge. In the end, he sells his soul to the evil powers. The Devil takes him to hell and since then there is a blackened hole on the ceiling of a Prague house.

Wealthy but alone, a king spends his days obsessively polishing shiny objects throughout his opulent castle. After a visit from a puckish forest wizard, the king earns a blessing – or curse – that turns anything he touches to gold.

A sarcastic horror parody of comic book series from the 1930s.

Using an array of gloves in different styles and from different historical periods, the film is a short history of the cinema - from silent movies via pastiches of Buñuel and Fellini and Close Encounters of the Third Kind to a futurist junkyard where tin cans become animated police cars in a city of urban decay.

Mozart's life was turbulent, even in Prague in 1787, when he was pressed for time to compose the overture to »Don Giovanni«.