Men in Rut

Czech Century brings the key moments of the history of the Czech nation from 1918 to 1989.

33-year-old Roman decides to tackle his drug addiction by undergoing group therapy as part of a community holed up on an isolated farm in the Šumava mountains. Twelve people, men and women of varying ages and social status, voluntarily subject themselves to a tough regime under the supervision of three therapists. Many of them have stared death in the face already – overdoses, suicide attempts, and aggression heightened by the use of hard drugs, outwardly affecting even the strongest of them. Each brings something of his past into the group, which he has to experience again, both for himself and for those assembled. Past anguish, wrongs and guilt give rise to new problems: in this thickening atmosphere of suspicion and lies, who can still be trusted? This intimate psychological drama deliberately sets out to break up the tight narrative form through retrospectives in which we learn about the past life of each individual.

Libor, a former teacher, enjoys a well-paid position as a bank manager, living in a luxurious villa outside Prague. His business partners are taken into custody and the authorities have a few questions for him to answer. Rather than wait around, he decides to take off to Moravia with his wife and two children. In the process, he pretends that everything is normal, rediscovers the value of family life, meets up with a former colleague lost in provincial obscurity, and becomes the object of a manhunt. Libor is not a criminal type, merely someone who signs cheques and is drawn into a business world failing to recognise its own criminality (he doesn’t even flee the country).

Under Czech law, most murders can be statute-barred in as little as 20 years. Radio presenter Eva gets involved in one case that is time-barred almost irretrievably. On her nightly show, she gives space to the mysterious Radek, who has returned to Prague after exactly twenty years.

Film crew on the road: Director (Jaroslav Plesl), his Producer (Simona Babcáková), and their Director of Photography (Jirí Vyorálek) and Sound Arist (Johana Svarcova). Starving artists who already have a number of films to their names, Czech Lion award-winning films, excellent reviews and have been screened at numerous festivals, but they don't have audiences. Their next collaborative effort - the Director's lifetime dream - is quickly becoming oblivion because he failed to win a grant, which means it won't be made. And so the frustrated Director and his colleagues await their chance among record-holders of curious disciplines such as crawling with a squash racket or collecting four-leaf clovers. How will the collision of these two worlds end? What will the Director's next film be about?

The last six months of the life of Jan Palach, who self-immolated to protest against the invasion of Czechoslovakia to crush of Prague Spring.

Barrandov Studios, once one of Europe’s most modern film factories, became both a cultural refuge and a propaganda tool under Nazi occupation, churning out Czech comedies and romances to keep the public distracted while its actors mingled with German authorities. After the war, many of those same stars faced accusations of collaboration, their meteoric Protectorate-era fame tainted by the compromises they made to keep the cameras rolling under shifting regimes.

Dita, a thirty-year-old woman longing for a baby, receives a young Border Collie from her boyfriend Filip, even though she never wanted a dog. She despises the dog-owning community and loathes dog waste, but her life takes an unexpected turn when she steps in one.

The aging Bohus buries his wife Vlastička and after seven years of abstinence starts drinking again.

Two police detectives, one a rookie and the other an experienced veteran, are far from clean. They are pursuing two criminals who are robbing small post offices and bank branches. During the raid and shootout, the rookie shoots one of the robbers. This changes his whole life. He is investigated by the Ministry of the Interior, leaves the police force, struggles to find work, his wife leaves him, and he starts drinking. Even his experienced colleague turns his back on him. Meanwhile, the robber who survived the shootout is planning a "big heist" with a recently released prisoner – an attack on a money transport. But this gang has no idea that they are being watched by the older of the two police officers...

A detective investigating a series of murders becomes a suspect himself. He is suspended from duty and conducts his own investigation. With the quiet help of a colleague, he finds a clue to the real perpetrator. A classic detective story that focuses more on the human destinies of the individual characters than on the investigation itself. The main character is best characterized by the dilemma that pits collegiality against duty. His personal story is also far from textbook, as he deals with shared custody of his daughter from a divorced marriage and a new relationship with a new woman.