Kristián Suda

Prague, Czechoslovakia, during the inter-war period. Jan Dítě, a young and clever waiter who wants to become a millionaire, comes to the conclusion that to achieve his ambitious goal he must be diligent, listen and observe as much as he can, be always discreet and use what he learns to his own advantage; but the turbulent tides of history will continually stand in his way.

Ema & Death’s-Head deals with the precarious border between humanism and the protection of one’s own life in situations when one excludes the other. Marika Sándorfi is hiding a Jewish boy during the dramatic era of the First Slovak State on the Slovak-Hungarian border. Šimon Holan, the boy in hiding, has a special ability to survive thanks to dreaming and a child’s fantasy.

Smoke was the Czech Rolling Stones. However, under unclear circumstances, they broke up in 1972, and each of the four former musicians came to terms with their fate as retired rockers in their own way. Each of them now has their own life and their own story. And their motives for reviving the band Smoke are also different—money, a desire for lost fame, a desire to help a friend, or to really let loose one more time. Their worlds collide and they begin to enjoy music, friendship, and life on and off stage. Not only the band members, but everyone around them is in for a lot of fun and often very surprising and comical situations. And finally, one big mystery is solved - why the band broke up in the first place.

The end of summer in the film also means the end of life. Vladimír Holas dies. Who is Vladimír Holas? Painter, sculptor and teacher of district importance. He painted many beautiful pictures - but not as great as he wished. He wasn't in the party, he wasn't in the Union of Artists, he didn't sell out to the past regime. The house in the beautiful countryside is his last refuge, death is inevitable and he doesn't want to die in an estranged hospital. He wants to crouch standing up, the way he lived.

The film follows the fate of the real inhabitants of the former German village of Vitín. The central character of the film is Otto Hille, who comes from a Czech-German family. He prepares an expedition for the old and seriously ill Leopold Švarc, which is supposed to be a cathartic journey into the past shrouded in mystery. Schwartz is accompanied by the faithfully serving autistic Michel, the cook Jan and Dr. Ignaci. Otto also enlists the begging bankrupt painter Henry to join the group. The expedition takes Otto to the land of his ancestors - the long-decayed German village of Vitín. He witnesses the events of 1945, where he meets his grandfather Otfried Hille. The trauma of the past becomes the key to understanding the present.

Eleven disparate adolescents, gathered for a skiing camp at an isolated winter resort, find themselves preyed upon and set against one another by their three mysterious instructors.

It is a story of three veterans released from the army. During one night spent camping in the country they one by one wake up and meet three elvish brothers. Each of the veterans is given a magic item - one gets magic harp that provides him with servants by wish, other one endless pouch of gold and the last one owns magic hat that can create all the staff excluding money and people.

A portrait of a small Moravian village and its quirky inhabitants.

Vašek learns that he is dying, so he steals a painting and goes to Rome to sell it – he needs money for a healer. Sitting on a train with a fake mustache on his face, he has no idea that he has, in fact, been sent on a spiritual quest of his life by a beautiful girl. His pursuers look as if they were transported from a 1970’s movie, yet his attention is constantly drawn to the other passengers, who pull him into their own stories with no mercy. Vašek slowly gets lost in a colorful chaos of other people’s destinies, opinions and his own dreams. In the end, his train will take some of them to hell, others to enlightenment or a bizarre epiphany. The film takes a humorous view on all the basic philosophical questions we have heard so many times but that we have yet to find the answers to.

Pan Tau, the friend of all children, now also helps the adults. A movie producer is in trouble and decides to shoot another Pan-Tau movie. But the old Pan-Tau actor Karasek is no longer young enough to walk the almost weightless walk of Pan Tau. Mr. Novak turns up - he resembles Pan Tau like a twin brother. He succeeds every pirouette. And as if by magic, he solves all the problems between people! Who is Mr. Novak? Is he really ...?

Ice hockey is a Czech national obsession, and the country's victory over Russia in the 1969 World Championships, the year following the Soviet invasion, is a celebrated moment in its history. In Marek Najbrt's black comedy, the heroic exploits take place only on a black and white tv screen as a group of representative misfits gather and watch the game in a desolate village on the Czech border. While consisting of recognisable types, Najbrt's bleak portrait reveals a world of alcoholism, debt, racism, bigotry, and infidelity that trails behind the dreams of nationalism and bears little resemblance to the fantasies of the new consumerism. A clever and multi-levelled film, it provides a sharp antidote to the reconciliatory charms of the conventional Czech comedy.

Marcela can't bear Jarda any longer, so she threatens divorce and takes the kids to her mom's, whose husband is a creep. While Marcela is there, Jarda is jailed, because he is part of a gang steeling cars and they get caught in the act. Benes, the urbane man whose car got stolen by Jarda and his gang, befriends Marcela. Soon she feels drawn to Benes and all of a sudden she must make up her mind: Jarda is still sexually attractive to her, but Benes offers security, and her own body and mind may not pull at the same strand.

Julie is a woman who seemingly has everything. A handsome husband, teenage daughter and a thriving, undemanding job as a translator and now even a new dream house ... But she also has a secret that is slowly changing her idyllic life...

Mamluk is an unassuming, handsome young peasant who happens to have come along just in time to save the king from a fatal trap, and as a reward, the king offers him the amount of land he can mark off by walking around in one day but he must return to the starting point before sunset.

The film's protagonists get an opportunity to make a wish. Consequently, their lives take the path they themselves ordained. Several "coincidences" bring them everything they wanted and they have the chance to experience their wishes. We are not only responsible in our lives for everything that we do, but also for everything we say, we think and desire.

“The fact that I’m playing myself doesn’t mean that it’s me.” Four old schoolmates, today well-known Czech actors (Pavel Liška, Tomáš Matonoha, Josef Polášek and Marek Daniel), decide to make a movie together. Their ambitious colleague Jan Budař takes up directing duties and financing has arrived from Poland. What started out pleasantly enough, however, soon goes awry. Liška’s pronunciation difficulties, Daniel’s alter ego Havlát, and Matonoha’s financial machinations turn the shoot into a fight for survival. More than just a film about friendship and the absurdity of actors’ lives, director Marek Najbrt gives us a witty meditation on reality and illusion, and a unique take on the reality film genre. One of Pavel Liška’s on-set comments (“I didn’t know if I should act as if I were acting, or act as if I weren’t acting, or just not act at all”) illustrates the provocative nature of Najbrt’s subversive, quasi-documentary game.

A grittily realistic tale of prostitution at an Eastern European border town

Films for children gradually fell into the grip of expressive and content sterility, succumbing to exhortative, educational tendencies. This is also the case in the story of a 14-year-old girl who has been accepted to the conservatory, but a sudden accident, a broken arm, makes her rethink her priorities - she learns that it is possible to engage in other activities than the tedious practice of piano etudes.

Honza Marak has long since abandoned a career in IT and has bought a cottage on the outskirts of a small village, where he’s settled in with his wife Marketa, daughter Anyna and son Sayen. He works in the woods as a forest labourer repairing roads and enclosures, cutting wood to sell and assisting the foresters. Marketa earns a living as a masseuse and alternative healer, making use of various mind-altering plants and mushrooms, which leads to conflict with the old inhabitants and eventually with drug enforcement. Daughter Anyna attends a distant school where her grades deteriorate as she wanders the woods learning from nature rather than from her textbooks.

Maruska is a blind girl and student at the Conservatory of Music who dreams of love and having a family despite her blindness. Her dream guy has curly blonde hair and blue eyes but she ends up falling in love with the dark eyed, swarthy Marek. Maruska lives with her overly protective grandfather whom is preocupied with his long-lost love. Maruska’s neighbor and best friend is constantly struggling with his headstrong mother as she refuses to accept that her son is gay. She blames everyone else - even her husband - for her son's "deviation." The fate of all main characters is unexpectedly intertwined and told through humorous and touching situations laced with subtle irony and hyperbole. Just as in life, with its funny situations and difficult tests, unexpected revelations and surprising twists, all characters will experience times when they behave blindly and forget to listen to their hearts.

A story about the friendship between ten years old Hans and Bison - the man who calls himself an extra-terrestrial.

The story of two brothers separated by one woman. A top neurosurgeon mired in a vicious circle of surgeries, alcohol and amorous adventures and his hot-blooded brother, back from the Czech mission in Afghanistan, raising two daughters but losing his battle with debts and a return to normal life. And it's all run by their mother. Their fates are intertwined with other characters of colleagues, fellow soldiers, friends, but they all have something in common. Everyone is a bit of a bastard sometimes...

Fogi is enjoying his never ending puberty. But simultaneously Fogi is also trying to live up to his family duties and bring up Véna, his son from the first marriage. He did not get married again but lives with Jana, a post office employee. Together they have little Anicka and they all live in a flat in a small town. At first, Jana is trying to tolerate Fogi's moods, but her patience is running out. Fogi loses his job. On top of that he starts to see himself in his adolescent son and realizes with horror that Véna repeats his own mistakes. The first fights, bans and mutual misunderstandings are approaching.

Krystof, an architect whose main priority is his job, has been living for several years with Tereza, who has a somewhat different outlook on life. Their love story reveals the distinctness and contradictory nature of each person's subjective worlds and shows how the line between dream and reality differs in each and every one of us.