Martina Šantavá

In the Czech Republic, throughout the history, there have been many patents and inventions that greatly influenced the social and economic development around the world. Our documentary series maps the most important inventions, as well as the less known ones. All, however, will surprise the audience by having their roots in our small country. Every invention entails a great story about the reason and initial difficulties of its existence but also about the people with great ideas who were willing to devote a large part of their lives to their inventions. They were armed with patience and faith, although often regarded as fools and renegades of society. Some inventions were created by accident, others led to years of disputes over the authorship. In the documentary, inventions and their stories will be organized in chronological order, as the time of their creation is important for the broader contexts and general development of the society. 3x52'

Many children from the Czech Republic labelled as "unplaceable" are leaving their homeland for Iceland, which is one of the few countries in the world that accept them with love. The Czechs have no interest in adoption of Roma children. The documentary reveals the incredible story of several Icelandic families that have decided to adopt Roma children from the Czech Republic. Children often come to new families with trauma from orphanages, families of origin or genetic predispositions. The new families don't understand the Czech anti-roma attitude, they are not regularly confronted with the TV news about Roma criminality, segregation of children in schools or depressing reality of socially excluded localities. How are these children doing in a society that is not looking at them with prejudices? How do they cope with language, school and relationships with peers? Will they ever want to come back "home"?

The documentary deals with the life story of our famous jockette and racehorse trainer, Martina Růžičková. By chance and a twist of fate, her life is now influenced by a famous double world champion in Formula 1. He bought a horse on which Martina Růžičková, after six failed attempts, will try to reach the Great Pardubice race and thus fulfil her dream. We enter with a camera into the "backstage" to see what has to be done during the preparation before the race. The final appearance of the documentary will be a combination of the current preparations for the race, her life story and personal confession as a "video diary".

The life story of one of the most important thinkers and writers of the twentieth century, the Austro Hungarian officer, passionate swimmer, tennis player and fencer, engineer, passionate smoker and a drinker of coffee, a man who loved money but lived almost all his life from support from his parents and patrons, and front-line officer newsletters, ironist and author several decades working on his fundamental, never finished - and unfinishable - novel The Man without Qualities, dandy, mathematician, philosopher Robert Musil, all this is the theme of the documentary Robert Musil.

The case of Karel Čurda – a parachutist of Czechoslovak foreign army during the WW2 who landed in the Protectorate in the spring of 1942. The man who had all the makings of a hero as well as his friends and colleagues. But ultimately it was him who betrayed all his friends and colleagues after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. Nobody is born a coward, nor hero or a traitor. Where is the intersection, the moment which decides who is who? In our quest, we will try to find that decisive moment and place.

This documentary follows the history of Czech Volhynians - beginning with their coming to Ukraine in 19th century till the return of most citizens to Czechoslovakia after the Second World War. It focuses on the contribution of Czechs to agriculture, farming and culture life in Ukraine and it explores modern history, which includes Stalinist repression or war tragedies (the burning of Český Malín). Film examines the difficult situation of the returnees to their homeland and their life during the communist regime.

Made shortly before the Krkonoše National Park celebrates its 50th anniversary, this portrait of a landscape sets out to be a poetic as well as factual tribute to the area and it should provide some instruction regarding environmental conservation in the Czech Republic.

We see the first symptoms of the disease, what else went wrong for Jitka at the time and how she was able to deal with it. We learn how the serious condition was diagnosed, meet the doctors and witness the entire therapy process, from chemotherapy to bone marrow transplant. Additional narrators of Jitka’s story are her friends, her sister and her mother. We get to see how friends and family can help overcoming a disease, what surprising activities they come up with to get Jitka back among healthy people again. This film also serves such education. Both for people who come into contact with leukaemia and for people who are not aware how much they could help by registering as bone marrow donors.

The main line of the film is an associative dreamy arranging of pictures: paintings, cartoons, photos, archive film shots as well as authentic fragments of the city outskirts shade into each other and create monochromatic portrait of the vanishing city of Prague.