The Fortress

Fugue on the Black Keys

Fati Farari, a black man from Africa, is completing his studies in classical piano at the Music Academy of Prague. It's the day before his first solo concert, where he is going to play Bach. While he strolls around the city he is thinking, not so much about the concert as about himself, both as a lonely foreigner and as a human being in cosmos. Here and there he encounters some racist comments, but mostly he just feels the weight of social exclusion because of his otherness, especially when it comes to women. On the morning of the day for his concert the embassy informs him that his whole family has perished. He feels totally broken, although he thinks that everyone holds some pain inside. His piano teacher, a professor at the Academy, looks him up, and tells him that he heard what has happened. The professor advises him to communicate his feelings that evening by using his Bach.

Questions for Two Women

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.

Squandered Sunday

A day in the life of Arnošt, a soldier staying in Josefov. A sense of desperation permeates the environment as well as the mind of the protagonist. It is sunday, and saturday left just a hangover. Days go by, nothing changes. A metaphor for the political situation in the Czech lands at a time where depicting a soldier as a drunk was considered out of place to say the least.

Romance for Bugle

A lyrical story about first love, death and disappointment, based on a poem of the same title.

Proměny přítelkyně Evy

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.

Rio Bravo

A small-town sheriff in the American West enlists the help of a disabled man, a drunk, and a young gunfighter in his efforts to hold in jail the brother of the local bad guy.

The Man Who Would Be King

Tired of life as soldiers, Peachy Carnehan and Danny Dravot travel to the isolated land of Kafiristan, where they are ultimately embraced by the people and revered as rulers. After a series of misunderstandings, the natives come to believe that Dravot is a god, but he and Carnehan can't keep up their deception forever.

Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl

The love story of an abused English girl and a Chinese Buddhist in a time when London was a brutal and harsh place to live.

Shanghai Express

A beautiful temptress re-kindles an old romance while trying to escape her past during a tension-packed train journey.

In the Bedroom

Summertime on the coast of Maine, "In the Bedroom" centers on the inner dynamics of a family in transition. Matt Fowler is a doctor practicing in his native Maine and is married to New York born Ruth Fowler, a music teacher. His son is involved in a love affair with a local single mother. As the beauty of Maine's brief and fleeting summer comes to an end, these characters find themselves in the midst of unimaginable tragedy.