The Way Through the Bleak Woods

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.

Film director Drahomíra Vihanová is preparing some interviews with two women. The women are at first sight opposites, but in reality they have much in common. Through the interviews the film director hopes to get a deeper understanding of herself as well. What unite all three of them is creativity, what creativity means for women, and how they combine their creative projects with their daily life.

Two Jewish boys escape from a train transporting them from one concentration camp to another. Beyond themes of war and anti-Nazism, the film concerns itself with man's struggle to preserve human dignity.

The glass industry, focusing on the master craftsmen of Bohemian crystal.

An artist's studio is descended upon by a group of retired men and a young mother who agree to model in the nude for money. Comedy ensues as the students and the local bureaucracy react to the models, all in need of extra money. Several running gags border on slapstick as the officials and the students don't know what to do with the nude models.

Luisa and Erika are prototypes of young women who plunge into relationships with the "wrong" men. Luisa wants to become an actress, which upsets her husband Igor to no end. Erika is trying to work as much as possible so that she can afford to study and thereby achieve a better outlook on life, but she unfortunately runs up against a boss who doesn't have the best intentions with her. Ultimately Luisa's husband demonstratively commits suicide. Erika accidentally kills her boss in self-defense... The women blame themselves for all these failures, and that has got to change. Both have to grow up and start living again. Perhaps even together.

Anny follows the life of the titular, intriguing character for 16 years, from 1996 up until 2012. Living in the Czech Republic, Anny is a 46-year-old woman whose day-to-day life has consisted of several different occupations, from a bathroom attendant and a doorman, to occasional sex work. Her outlook on her jobs is fairly simple, you have to do the work if you want to eat, spoil your grandkids, or buy yourself new clothes.

The stories of all the characters are linked to the fate of a media-successful married couple. The film is an account of life in a Central European metropolis, from which humanity and spiritual values are disappearing as a result of a hasty lifestyle. Vera and Daniel's marriage has been deadlocked for a long time, Vera is at the end of her career as an actress and Daniel prefers to hang out with younger girls than with his own wife. In addition, a young Macedonian woman, Liana, enters their family and Vera finds a part of herself in her. Parallel to Vera and Daniel, Eva, a nurse, and Martin, a designer, are looking for a place in life.

An aristocratic woman suffers a severe nervous breakdown and is subsequently institutionalized following a disastrous infidelity. She descends into madness while grappling with intense psychological torment and the fallout of her social and personal life.

In addition to the so-called collective portraits, Drahomíra Vihanová also captures distinctive individuals - for example, she made films about the director František Vláčil or the piano virtuoso František Rauch. This series also includes a portrait of the singer Eva Olmerová, The Changes of Eva's Friend. This film met with a very contradictory audience response after its completion. Here the director attempted to capture the form of a human being, the ups and downs of an undoubtedly brilliant singer. The empathetic viewer will soon understand that this film is like life itself: it is harsh, loving, there is an irritating volatility, a restlessness of the soul, reconciliation, compassion, humility and passion. And this applies not only to the filmed Eva Olmera, but also to the director Vihan.