A Bagful of Fleas

An intellectual match between two dramatically different artists, one permanently unsure and frustrated and questioning everything, the other an astonishing storyteller perfectly at peace, unacquainted with introspection and reliant on intuition.

Ester Krumbachová - a costume designer, screenwriter, director; one of the boldest personalities of the Czech New Wave. She worked in theatre, she was a writer and an illustrator. She co-created films such as O slavnosti a hostech (1966), Sedmikrásky (1966), Vsichni dobrí rodáci (1969), Pension pro svobodné pány (1968), Valerie a týden divu (1970), Slamený klobouk (1972) and many others. In the 1960s, she was a 'pivot' of the art scene in Prague, attracting artists who were on the threshold of their career, just setting out to find their own form of self-realization. Those who underwent her tutelage remember her forever. Director Vera Chytilová talks to those who knew Ester Krumbachová, who worked with her, befriended her, loved her. She sets off on a search that is to end by answering the question: Who was Ester?

In a rare instance of literary adaptation, Chytilová was inspired by Franz Kafka’s writings. Mr. K stashes stolen jewelry away at home and seldom allows his wife to wear it. A nosy neighbour, Mr. B, drops in. A cat observes it all.

Two teenage girls embark on a series of destructive pranks in which they consume and destroy the world around them.

An old man is wandering round a badly signposted and as yet mostly under construction Prague housing estate looking for the high rise block into which he is supposed to be moving with his daughter's family. The old granddad from the countryside likes chatting, nothing escapes his eyes and he wants to give everyone a helping hand.

The Emperor's mismanagement of his country is provoking some in his court to plot to overthrow him. He feels successful, at least, when he discovers the legendary Golem, which he believes can protect him and even cure his imaginary illnesses but, when he disappears while on a bender, his kindly baker, who looks just like him, is mistaken for him, and begins to put things in order. However, the conspirators, not to be outdone, determine to bring the Golem back to life to do their bidding.

The Soviet advance met with fierce, idealistic resistance. We join the hundreds of students as they man barricades constructed from overturned lorries to try to halt the advance. Sparsely armed, they fight fiercely, driven by a belief in their new and better socialism. But the deadening, inevitable weight of Soviet might soon stamps its boot across this hopeful Czech vision. Over 100 people died in the reprisals which followed, and tens of thousands fled their homes for the West. This is the definitive story of the heady days before Soviet "normalisation" took hold. The film was assembled using footage smuggled out of Prague. What began as an account of the liberation of a people, became a documentary of oppression; as the tanks moved in, the cameras simply continued rolling.

Bohus is indolent and spends his days drinking brandy. One day he finds he has inherited a brickworks, several shops and a five-star hotel. Bohus sets out to tour his new empire, insulting everyone on the way.

The movie is a satirical look at foreign occupation - a medieval Czech jester entertains a German king and his French wife, or a modern Czech villager helps a Bavarian hunter and his French wife find wild boar in Bohemia - the story switches back and forth between the two plots and time-periods.

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.

In her first feature, Věra Chytilová uses a combination of documentary and fiction film techniques to tell two stories in counterpoint. The first follows Olympic champion gymnast Eva Bosáková, who contemplates retirement as she undergoes a gruelling training schedule; the second, a housewife who is unappreciated and ignored by her husband.

An experimental retelling of the story of Adam and Eve which then progresses into an allegorical depiction of the loss of innocence.

Sarcastic comedy about the Czechoslovakia of the seventies. A young gynaecologist can't figure out whether to get serious with a young nurse or to stay casual with his married lover. Things get complicated when both women don't want to play his game anymore.

The employees of the furniture company MARS welcome a rare visitor with hired music. Their boast that they would put together an orchestra is taken seriously, so they receive a small gift - musical instruments for thirty musicians.

A fictional story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's stay in Prague. The film, in no case, claims any historical facts. It only tries to evoke the spirit of that time by connecting Mozart's music with the architecture of Prague and by pointing up the changes in Prague during Mozart's two-hundred absence in the Czech metropolis.

A striking generational tragicomedy, A Hoof Here, a Hoof There is a caustic group portrait of pals who enjoy a tipple, all kinds of hi-jinks and no-strings sexual adventures. Auditor Pepe, vet Dědek and restaurant manager František are financially secure and enjoy life with their similarly fun-loving girlfriends—at least until the moment when the brash Pepe collapses and ends up in hospital.