The Cry

Labyrinth

Film makes the creative process visible by letting its narrative flow in the mind of a foreign director who is researching a film about Franz Kafka in Prague. Based on the principle of dreams and free association, segments unfold that deal with the various points of view that Kafka's work, personality and fate offer. In the labyrinth of his mind, the fictional director projects himself into situations from the author's life, with Kafka himself as his guide. At the same time, he delves into the history of the persecution of the Jews and glimpses the monstrosity of the bureaucratic apparatus that Kafka anticipated but could not have foreseen the monstrous size and function it would grow to a few years after his death in the institutionalized genocide and overall machinery of Nazism.

Jestřábí moudrost

A gloomy tale about a king whose pride robbed him of love, friends and power. A cruel curse is at the beginning of the story of this fairy tale based on an old Irish legend. Until the king's newly born son raises his sword against his father, there will be no spring in the Hawk Kingdom. Although the king orders the counselor Ordon to kill the child, the nurse saves him and entrusts the child to the care of a bird. He names him Christopher and raises him together with his son Janko. Twenty years later, the king succumbs to Ordon's urging to war with the neighbouring King Ubald. It is in this war that the curse is fulfilled and the tragic fate of the new king, who cannot listen to the right mouth, begins to unfold.

Opera ve vinici

The peculiar Fanoš Mikulecký is the originator of many well-known songs from Podluží, generally considered folk songs. Next to him, the other main protagonist of the story is Honza, a musician and an uneducated journalism student. On one of his journeys he meets his former professor. He suggests that together they visit one of those who compose folk songs but do not claim authorship, Fanoš Mikulecký. With him, Honza understands the meaning of artistic creation and the fulfilment of human life...

Escape Home

A twelve-year-old is looking for his biological parents after discovering the fact that he was adopted.

Double Role

An intimate psychological film which elaborates the Faustian theme about the dispute between the body and the soul - a study on human identity. Two young doctors carry out the surgical exchange of the brains of two women who are dying after a car accident - a young girl and member of a criminal gang, and a lonely seventy-year-old associate professor of oriental studies. The young girl wakes from the operation thinking like the elderly intellectual and tries in vain to live with her new identity. (https://www.filmovyprehled.cz/en/film/22344/double-role)

Extended Time

The dramatic story of Karel Svozil, an aging professor of art history, tells of love and old age, illness, death and the worries of everyday life with a humorous touch. A diagnosis of a cancerous tumour unexpectedly interferes with the life of the wise and sophisticated man and his love affair with the much younger Alena, leading him to contemplate suicide. However, the gloomy thoughts are soon replaced by feverish activity, with which Professor Svozil tries to make the most of his remaining time. He finishes his book, marries his mistress, and openly speaks out against his superior. However, an accident radically changes the whole situation.

The Dynamite Watcher

Three separate short stories by Jan Drda from the collection The Dumb Barricade: The Dynamite Watchman, Hatred and Traces.

The Island of the Silver Herons

The late summer of 1918. Paul, Willi and Heinrich from an age-old German town are good friends, although there is a great deal that divides them. Heinrich comes from an officer's family with an army tradition and is preparing to enter cadet college. Paul's father and grandfather are workers, and Willi, left to depend on himself, works as a hotel messenger. The last year of the war is hard for everyone, but while Paul and Willi know their own minds and do not hesitate to help the war fugitives Tony and Sepp, for Heinrich everything is more complicated.

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders

Valerie, a Czechoslovakian teenager living with her grandmother, is blossoming into womanhood, but that transformation proves secondary to the effects she experiences when she puts on a pair of magic earrings. Now seeing the world around her in a different light, Valerie must endure her sexual awakening while attempting to discern reality from fantasy as she encounters lecherous priest Gracian, a vampire-like stranger and otherworldly carnival folk.

Footprints

This early short by Jaromil Jireš anticipates the formal and stylistic experimentation that would characterize VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS.

Uncle

In this six-minute short, a man’s attempt to burgle a home is interrupted by a child.

Incomplete Eclipse

Marta (Lucie Patikova) was blinded in an accident brought on by her careless and indulgent younger sister. Now in a school for the blind, Marta keeps up her hope that she will one day see again, mainly because her mother - out of good intentions - has led her to believe that the blindness is only temporary. Before long, Marta comes to realize that her condition will last until she dies, and she begins to despair, hating her mother for giving her false hope. Only a dedicated psychologist, Dr. Mos (Oldrich Navratil) seems to have the means of retrieving Marta from her depression.

CzechMate: In Search of Jiří Menzel

An epic exploration of the Czechoslovak New Wave cinema of the 1960s and 70s, structured around a series of conversations with one of its most acclaimed exponents - Closely Observed Trains director Jiří Menzel.

The Joke

In the 1950s, Ludvik Jahn was expelled from the Communist Party and the University by his fellow students, because of a politically incorrect note he sent to his girlfriend. Fifteen years later, he tries to get his revenge by seducing Helena, the wife of one of his accusers.

Flying Saucers Over Our Village

A model Communist village is visited by a flying saucer.

Učitel tance

A special story about love, dance, and immortality takes place in the late 1940s. A young man, dance master Mayer, arrives at a pulmonary sanatorium. His diagnosis is serious—tuberculosis. However, he does not give in to his illness and begins to actively fight it with dance and optimism. Gradually, he wins over other patients who had previously resigned themselves to their fate. Soon, however, his illness breaks out in full force and insidiousness. Facing death, he embodies human courage and a positive attitude towards life.