Josef Vondráček

Shadow of a Flying Bird

It doesn't help to have an exacerbated situation like a family losing their only son - killed in a motorcycle accident. His parents, however, don't know the girl who survived, now being treated at a local hospital. Especially the honest and principled father, presented as a model worker and responsible official, cannot come to terms with her superficiality and carelessness, with her dubious life values...

Dva muži hlásí příchod

An only son, Jirí Valenta (Jaromír Hanzlík), has been drafted to the army. At the barracks he acquires the nickname Seamstress because he sews rugs in his spare time. One day, his friend introduces him to Julka Vávrová (Jorga Kotrbová), a girl he is desperate to get rid of. The naive Jirí falls in love with the girl and accepts her invitation to spend Easter together in the country. There he learns that the girl is the single mother of the young boy Martínek, whose father is the married tractor driver.

The Little Mermaid

The little mermaid rescues a prince from drowning and falls in love with him. To be with him, she makes a deal with the evil sorceress: her beautiful voice against a life on land.

My Sweet Little Village

The movie's main storyline follows the life of Otík, a young man, in a tight-knit village community. The sweet-tempered Otík works as an assistant truck driver with Mr. Pávek, his older colleague and practical-minded neighbor. Pávek's family takes care of Otík, whose parents are dead. However, the two coworkers become at odds over Otík's inability to perform even the simplest tasks. Pávek demands that Otík be transferred to assist another driver, who happens to be a choleric and suspicious man named Turek (Turk in Czech). Rather than work with Turek, Otík decides to accept an offer of employment in Prague, but finds he does not fit in to the city life. After discovering that the transfer of Otík to Prague was a trick by a crooked politician to get a deal on Otík's large inherited house, Pávek agrees to give Otík a second chance and retrieves him from the city to resume their work together.

The Hope

A group of outcasts, including a vagabond and a prostitute, gather at the outskirts of the industrial area of a large Czech city, one of the things that helps some of them survive is alcohol.

Closely Watched Trains

At a village railway station in occupied Czechoslovakia, a bumbling dispatcher’s apprentice longs to liberate himself from his virginity. Oblivious to the war and the resistance that surrounds him, this young man embarks on a journey of sexual awakening and self-discovery, encountering a universe of frustration, eroticism, and adventure within his sleepy backwater depot.

Slingboy

A young Czech boy is freed from a concentration camp and now is working for the army against the Germans.

Cutting It Short

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.

Shadow of a Flying Bird

It doesn't help to have an exacerbated situation like a family losing their only son - killed in a motorcycle accident. His parents, however, don't know the girl who survived, now being treated at a local hospital. Especially the honest and principled father, presented as a model worker and responsible official, cannot come to terms with her superficiality and carelessness, with her dubious life values...

Dva muži hlásí příchod

An only son, Jirí Valenta (Jaromír Hanzlík), has been drafted to the army. At the barracks he acquires the nickname Seamstress because he sews rugs in his spare time. One day, his friend introduces him to Julka Vávrová (Jorga Kotrbová), a girl he is desperate to get rid of. The naive Jirí falls in love with the girl and accepts her invitation to spend Easter together in the country. There he learns that the girl is the single mother of the young boy Martínek, whose father is the married tractor driver.

The Little Mermaid

The little mermaid rescues a prince from drowning and falls in love with him. To be with him, she makes a deal with the evil sorceress: her beautiful voice against a life on land.

My Sweet Little Village

The movie's main storyline follows the life of Otík, a young man, in a tight-knit village community. The sweet-tempered Otík works as an assistant truck driver with Mr. Pávek, his older colleague and practical-minded neighbor. Pávek's family takes care of Otík, whose parents are dead. However, the two coworkers become at odds over Otík's inability to perform even the simplest tasks. Pávek demands that Otík be transferred to assist another driver, who happens to be a choleric and suspicious man named Turek (Turk in Czech). Rather than work with Turek, Otík decides to accept an offer of employment in Prague, but finds he does not fit in to the city life. After discovering that the transfer of Otík to Prague was a trick by a crooked politician to get a deal on Otík's large inherited house, Pávek agrees to give Otík a second chance and retrieves him from the city to resume their work together.

The Hope

A group of outcasts, including a vagabond and a prostitute, gather at the outskirts of the industrial area of a large Czech city, one of the things that helps some of them survive is alcohol.

Closely Watched Trains

At a village railway station in occupied Czechoslovakia, a bumbling dispatcher’s apprentice longs to liberate himself from his virginity. Oblivious to the war and the resistance that surrounds him, this young man embarks on a journey of sexual awakening and self-discovery, encountering a universe of frustration, eroticism, and adventure within his sleepy backwater depot.

Slingboy

A young Czech boy is freed from a concentration camp and now is working for the army against the Germans.

Cutting It Short

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.

Forbidden Dreams

Leo Popper is a happy family man living in rural Bohemia in the years preceding the Nazi invasion. Out of economic necessity he moves with his family to the big city and becomes an enterprising vacuum cleaner salesman. There he embarks on a series of adulterous adventures, has encounters with boxing pros and famous portrait artists, and schemes to purchase the perfect pond to fulfill his passion for fishing. When the Nazis gain control, the comedy turns sour - he loses his lake, his job, and finally, his family.

Calamity

Funny banter about love, sex, social status, and other ideals, while a new railway employee is trained and sent on his first run as driver.

Love Between the Raindrops

Set in Prague during the years leading up to World War II, this family saga tells the story of a cobbler named Vincenc Bursik (Vladimir Mensik), who uproots his clan from the country to the city, only to suffer the loss of his wife and the failure of his shoe business within months. When his daughter moves away to go live with a wealthy businessman as his mistress, Vincenc is left to take care of his two sons, who spend their days in a secret garden vying for the affections of a teenage girl.

The Return of the Prodigal Son

Engineer Jan Sebek (Jan Kacer) is undergoing treatment in a mental home after his unsuccessful attempt to commit suicide. His therapist, via discussions both with the patient and with people who know him, tries to find out what made the young and seemingly satisfied man decide to end his own life. Jan's pretty wife Jana (Jana Brejchová) claims not to know about anything but she is conducting an affair with a family friend, almost publicly and with the blessing of her parents.

The Gentle Barbarian

A commemorative and essayistic meditative piece on the Prague quarter Libeň during the 1950s.

Člověk proti zkáze

Biography of Karel Čapek.

Murder Czech Style

The protagonist (Rudolf Hrusinsky) is a dull, fat, shy government clerk indulging in voyuerism and ego fantasies. In love with another clerk (Kveta Fiolova), he is urged on in his pursuit by a commiserate executive. The story is told in a flashback sequence as the cuckolded Hrusinsky attempts suicide by gassing himself in his bathtub. The "Murder" of the title is not a murder as such, rather the murder that Hrusinsky remembers planning upon discovering his wife's unfaithfulness with his supposed friend and advisor. Both plots failing in his mind, he loses himself in fantastic reveries of his funeral and of hypocritical mourners. ' Deciding (perhaps) that this is not the way out either, he gives up the attempt and imagines a life of reconciliation and eventual affluence.

An Uncertain Season

The small group of actors have to face many problems while preparing a new performance.

Waiting for the Rain

It’s a hot holiday season in the city and Alena is pretty much left to her own little self, fantasizing and running her personal daily rituals, keeping most people at a safe distance, yet trying to get male attention.

Windstorm

A worker steals bits and pieces of building materials from work to construct a new home for himself and his girlfriend. When he discovers that she’s having an affair with his boss, he devises one elaborate plot after another to murder the rival, each time with pathetic results.

Hráči

A professional card player and swindler, Icharev, arrives in a small town with a plan to rip off some local jackdaw if possible. However, a trio of local, experienced swindlers have the same plan. They want to play cards with Icharev, but they immediately recognize each other's personalities. The fun continues, but the group regrets that they have no one to play with. There is a local landowner, Glov, but he avoids cards like the devil. And yet he is waiting for two hundred thousand rubles from the bank for the sold piece of land. Of course, the gentlemen will not miss their chance... A recording of a theatrical production by the Drama Club in Prague.

Never Strike A Woman... Even with A Flower

Shortish forty-year old Ludvík Podzimek, lute and flute player in a Prague orchestra, is far from being an attractive man. He is nevertheless generally considered a great 'Don Juan'. Women take up with him out of a certain motherly compassion and Ludvík's tender heart does not allow him to split with any of them. His lovers thus accumulate and cause him numerous troubles.

Únos Moravanky

The popular Moravanka brass band performs at the fair. Vasek Pivoňka, the bandleader of the local brass band Kulatěnky, which broke up, decides to put the band back together. The village musicians are sceptical at first, but later they start rehearsing with vigour. Standa, a Prague resident who is working in a pig farm to cure his nerves, helps them to organise the concert. He really likes Evica Kocourková, but her father keeps an eye on her. Young Šišák tries to charm the teacher Olina. Before the performance can begin, the band must succeed before the cultural committee. However, they fail to do so. The disappointed musicians play for themselves at the station and suddenly they are successful. Standa comes up with an idea how to push Kulatěnka through without the permission of the commission. A concert of Moravanka is being prepared in nearby Nechvalin.

Concert

Rock concerts used to be suspicious. They were supposed to attract all sorts of strange individuals who meant no good. In this case, it's a pair of escaped convicts who want to hide in the heat of the concert...

Kotva u přívozu

A few weeks in the life of the family of an attractive woman, the TV presenter Magda, her second husband and her teenage son. Magda is a lively, energetic woman, not for nothing is she called "the boss" at home. Besides her profession, she handles other problems with aplomb. Her dream is to finally move from her small apartment to her self-built villa on the river and to make it by Christmas Eve. But everything is unpredictable and sometimes life finds its own ways.

Proč nevěřit na zázraky

Wartime events from a child's perspective were a popular theme during the previous regime - here it is a twelve-year-old village boy who experiences dangerous situations with retreating Nazi troops in picturesque South Bohemia... Any attempt to achieve a more believable depiction is destroyed by the staging's grandeur, and in the end the result is an awkward piece, suitable at most for celebrating the relevant national holidays. A longer copy with a tragic ending is stored in the NFA. Milda is shot unnoticed by an SS major.

Pan Tau

Pan Tau always had a gentle expression and a friendly smile, he was elegantly dressed in a stroller, with an umbrella and a white carnation in the lapel. Foremost, he was famous for his magic bowler hat. By tapping on his hat, Pan Tau was able to change his appearance into a puppet, to conjure up miscellaneous objects or to do other magic. His most characteristically behavior is that he would help children who were experiencing some sort of difficulties in-between their dreams and reality, like finding a place for skiing, settling family problems on Christmas, and even give a boy a good time at a fair when he is supposed to have piano lessons. To adults, he usually remained invisible.