- Occupation
Producer - Country
Czech Republic
Becková Anna
A Scout Has Bare Knees
The impulse for the making of this documentary was a 30-year-old amateur film from the life of the Junák organisation of Czech Scouts that was found in a remarkably good condition. The director, a former member of the troop, who had the identity card no.021515, decided to find out what happened to his childhood friends. 35 years after the last camp, he decided to invite all the former participants to the original campsite near the Eliáš weir on the Oslava river, build a camp and live the Scout life for several days, trying out various skills and games. Once again they wear Scout uniforms and, in compliance with the Junák rule - to always tell the truth - tell each other the truth about their lives... There is a top medical doctor, an athlete, a summer film school director, Communist army political leaders and the homeless. We can follow the history of this country through the lives of boys from a little Moravian town.
Industrial Elegy
A visually poetic documentary about people living in the mining colonies in Ostrava that are gradually being shut down. As this world slowly disappears, we also lose the local traditional values, unique experiences and important memories of remarkable people who live very tough lives.
Love Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
A documentary love story. A mother and daughter's view of the relationships between eight couples from various generations over the course of a year. A search for what most connects people, and at the same time divides them. The daughter mostly looks at young couples who are still choosing their life partners. Her mother looks at couples who have come to terms with the decision they made long ago, or are learning how to. A mosaic of human fates connected by the same simple, and yet complicated, desire to love and be loved.
A Czech Phenomenon: Dance Lessons
With a humourous distance, Dancing Lessons examines a phenomenon unique to Czech national culture - dance courses. The director followed a Prague dance class for more than a year - from the signing up, the balls, through to the last class, capturing the transformation of insecure, self-conscious youth into self-confident young ladies and gentlemen.
Sweat and Tears - The Making of the Prague Spring, Opus No. 2
This documentary film is the second in the trilogy Prague Spring Comes Every Year, which disrupts the stereotype in which the world of classical music is presented by the media. The film is made up of four storylines. The story of conductor Sir Charles Mackerras, as he rehearses Janáček's Taras Bulba with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. The second story shows a unique event of two grand pianos being reassembled to form a single instrument, and the concert featuring this instrument. In the third story we are present at an international competition in trombone playing and we watch the mutual attitudes of the competitors. Garrick Ohlsson, a star of the first order, features in the fourth story, which tells about the artist's feelings towards the composer and his endless path to perfection.
Farewell Sun
A deep interpretation of life and work of Czech painter Alén Diviš (1900 - 1956), the film is not a mere portrait or a profile. It is a subjective and abstract picture of his voyages across the world, it is a substance of creative moments. The artist's existence and experience is reflected in moments linked up with the lines of his travels around the world.
On Grandma
A documentary film combining period material with interviews from a 92-year old lady and animated episodes capturing one person's life.
What Language Does the Lord Speak…?
The documentary portrait presents a mountain farmer from Velká Úpa who was shot. The story of Friedrich Kneifel's family mirrors the collective fates of the Sudeten Germans from eastern Krkonoše.
We Are Not Angels, Just Doing Their Job/The Power and the Mystery of Jesuits
The Society of Jesus - the Jesuits - is one of the largest and most important orders of the Catholic Church. Their mission includes pastoral and missionary work, as well as contributions to education, science, culture and the arts. The order dates back to 1534, when it was founded by Ignatius of Loyola. The documentary provides a glimpse at the present state of the Society of Jesus, and it also reveals why the order had been so often considered dangerous.
Battle for Life
A fascinating look at the colourful life of a community which in defiance of difficult circumstances lives life to the fullest. The village of Bystré is situated in a former textile region which is currently in deep crisis - unemployment in certain places has reached over 20% and young people are moving elsewhere.
Troublemakers
Věra Chytilová's documentary film that presents a diverse group of women who comment on various social and political issues.
Women at the Turn of the Millennium - Trapped
Helena Třeštíková is the author of 10 episodes from the series Women on the Brink of the New Millennium, intimate portraits of both successful women and women on the social periphery. The tragic story of a girl named Katka who believes that joy and happiness can be applied through a hypodermic needle. All she is left with is despair. We first meet Katka at a rehab clinic in Němčice, still full of optimism and faith in a drug-free future. The film tries to draw attention to the drug problem from a somewhat different point of view...
Marcela
The extraordinary life of an ordinary woman. The fifth part of a series entitled "Marriage Stories" featured Marcela, whose story started in 1980 at the Prague town hall. Still in black and white, the film follows events over a period of six years. In 1999 we re-enter her life, but shooting has to be interrupted after her daughter Ivana is hit by a train. Four months later, shooting resumes. The audience, moved by her difficult life, decided to help the despairing mother. The film captures the events of the past year.
To Be a Roma Girl
The lifestory of Vojta Lavička - musician and Roma activist.
Women at the Turn of the Millennium - To Be a Romany Woman
The theme of the whole documentary cycle is that of several woman and their and singular fates. The individual parts introduce women who are in their zenith and are enjoyning success and fame are woman who are down and out among the dregs of society; women in enviable, in seemingly ordinary and pitiable situations. The documentaries were made by the time-collection method with shoot taking place during a period of five years. Following the life of a young Roma intellectual, Jarmila Balážová.
Bohemia Docta or The Labyrinth of the World and the Lusthaus of the Heart (A Divine Comedy)
The portrait of Czech "national character and soul" is based on major works from Czech and world culture as well as the large cycle "Slavic Epopee" by Alphonse Mucha. It is the third part of Karel Vachek's tetralogy Little Capitalist, a reflection on the social and spiritual processes taking place in Czech culture. The film raises questions about the future of Czech society as well as individual lives.
In the Center of Film (In the Warmth of Home)
An unconventional look at the 1997 edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
Seekers of a Fixed Point
This documentary is a provisional culmination of a long-term project that aims to capture recent Czech history (1990-2001) by following the lives of four people who were active in the events of 1989.
Suchá Hora
A stylized documentary film tracking the changes in the remotest Slovak village at the very edge of the Orava Region at the Slovak-Polish border. The film's subject can be traced through nearly all of Eastern Europe. It could be referred to as "images from the fringes of an integrated continent". The film is a follow-up to a 20-year-old documentary film about a mountain village which, in the course of a single generation, underwent changes that took generations in most regions of former Czechoslovakia. The local ethnic community is very distinct - sometimes even considered to be a separate nationality of the so-called Goral people - and has strong ties not only to Slovakia but also to Poland and the Czech Republic. To a large extent, the gradual decline of specific folklore points to the loss of identity, which is also the main message of this forthcoming documentary film.
The Shutka Book of Records
Shutka is the largest Roma settlement in the Balkans. At least according to the words of a young local fisherman, who is the main protagonist of this documentary film, shot in co-production with Czech Television. The film is a guide through the streets of Shutka, where in every person we can find at least one national champion, or even world champion, regardless of what it is in. What is important is that each person believes in their uniqueness and others recognize it. In this ever-expanding society, space is made for competing religious representatives such as those participating in a Muslim dervish or the servants of God using the "medium" of Christian tradition. The local homosexual in his colourful wardrobe is no less respected that the greatest pair of lovers - prostitute Kasandra and the elderly Alfonso who enjoys walking around Shutka in a copy of Tito's uniform. This Macedonian settlement, with its difficult-to-estimate population, also has its own music industry: from the recording studio to the workshop for music videos and even some big stars, who due to the active work of local music pirates must earn money in the old-fashioned way - at weddings, circumcision celebrities or funerals.
The Lost Soul of a Nation - The Loss of Tradition (Farmers)
The series of seven hour-long documentaries follows the life stories of political prisoners of the 1950s, but the subject is linked to present-day national soul. The series recalls national losses, the effects of which still persist, and focuses on specific segments of the population which felt the loss most keenly. The series recalls national losses, the effects of which still persist, and focuses on specific segments of the population which felt the loss most keenly. The loss was in human terms, the human pillars upon which democratic society rested and which were razed by the Communists. The elimination from social life of tens of thousands of people in certain categories resulted in the general impoverishment of the national soul. The current state of affairs is the result: many dynamic people simply "aren't available" - to be patriots, organizers, leaders. The film stresses that what Communist persecution sowed is still being reaped, and not only in the national subconscious. The loss of tradition, as the film explores, reawakens memories of the breakdown in the continuity of country lineage and the violent transformation of the countryside.
The Lost Soul of a Nation - Loss of Dignity (Soldiers)
Gripping testimonies of four young Czechoslovak army officers who were imprisoned in the political purges of the 1950s. Having graduated from military academy in the short period between the end of WWII and the start of Communist rule in 1948, they were charged with having allegiance not to the Communist Party, but to the institution of the military and its tradition as guarantor of national dignity. The four men describe in detail their ordeals and experiences in prison and the persecution that followed them even after their release. One of them tried and failed to escape from captivity twice, leading to harsher punishment. Another discovered religious faith, and later created a meditation garden dedicated to the victims of dictatorship. Another survived torment and solitary confinement. This is the first of the seven-part series Before It's Too Late, which chronicles the testimonies of victims of Communist persecution in Czechoslovakia.
Remembering in Reflection (Remembering)
Two documentary films about disease, fear and hope – Reflection (dir. Evald Schorm, 1965) and Remembering (dir. Ivan Vojnár, 2007) – which chime together, in spite of being divided for more than 40 years. This documentary film brings together Evald Schorm and Ivan Vojnár. Schorm's film Zrcadlení inspired Vojnár's film poll that refers back to the search for lost ideals and the personal and social fight against fear. Is physical pain and disease a metaphor for a more general affliction? Schorm's Zrcadlení (1964) shifted the cinéma vérité style closer to a film essay, without aspiring to capture the sociological implications of the subject. Through questions about happiness which he posed to hospital patients, the director turns to the viewer and confronts human existence with the natural flow of time. Jan Špáta's authentic photography with its poetic compositions supplies a new thematic layer to the film; the protagonists often remain outside the camera's view, which helps to add general validity to very personal statements. Ivan Vojnár's project Rozpomínání revisits the hospital environment yet the questions have a clear sociological aspect - the director changes Schorm's "how to live" from its philosophical and figurative meaning into the everyday struggle with social and political realities. The range of respondents is very broad to include all social and age groups. The topics focus on the life in the Czech Republic at the beginning of the 21st century; in addition to questions regarding general values, happiness, sympathy or wealth, Vojnár asks about politics, Czech national character or attitudes to minorities. Authentic, mostly work environments of the protagonists also play an important part in the film.
Holocaust - I. Photographs Stop Time
Development of relations in Czehc society up to World War II.
66 Seasons
A film about the Košice swimming pool, the place where, according to the filmmaker's slogan, "history came to swim." Set between 1936 and 2002, the story reflects historical events that took place in Central and Eastern Europe during that period. Half-naked men and women lived through the 1941 bombing of Košice (in eastern Slovakia), some swimmers never returned from the front lines, and one of the pool's builders died in a concentration camp. The film is dedicated to the memory of the director's grandfather, and the filmmaker and his father make appearances. Using the pool as a backdrop where three generations came to cool off, a kind of "personal theatre" has been created, a space which itself becomes a model for evoking social history...
Citizen Havel Goes on Vacation
This 80-minute documentary recreates a trip across Czechoslovakia. Václav Havel took the trip in 1985 when he was still the country's most prominent dissident. In the course of one week, he was twice thrown into jail for 48 hours of preventive detention and followed by over 300 plainclothed policemen, who would helpfully point out to him the right way whenever he got lost. Contrasted with the authentic Czech TV news of the period (the harvest was going swimmingly), the stories of Havel and his dissident hosts show that you can live a great life even under the staggering pressure of a totalitarian juggernaut. A Czech emigree in Chicago, the writer and screenwriter Jan Novák, who had been awarded the Magnesia Litera prize for a documentary novel OK So Far, created and produced this film.
Bye Bye Shanghai
Distinguished Czech documentarist Jana Boková, who lives in Argentina, decided for her latest film to find out exactly what the word "exile" means. Her first stop is Prague, where after a period of 40 years, she meets up with a friend, the philosopher Václav Belohradský. Their joint recollections of leaving Prague, at that time occupied by forces of Soviet Union, are deftly woven into high-quality archive footage. She also conducts a frank interview in Prague with the lightly intoxicated Vlasta Trešnák, who remembers his torture during the endless interrogations by the state secret police and the need to choose between prison and emigration. This highly personal film examines the lives of several Czech emigrants, including the director herself, considers the various aspects of emigration and reaches the conclusion that, once a person has been uprooted, he can never cultivate his native roots again. "In Paris Věra Linhartová once wrote an essay about the irresolvable nature of emigration. Once you're uprooted you can never take root again. That's true for me too. In recent years, something has been changing though. It's a different generation, people who didn't have to make tough decisions in 1968. The prejudice is disappearing and I decided to come back to Prague through film. Moreover, Prague is impenetrable and exotic to me because I was very young when I left. But the Prague part of the trilogy is not about me. I'm interested in people like Petr Král, people who return after years in emigration. Prague will be viewed from a greater distance, from somewhere halfway to a return."
Women at the Turn of the Millennium: A Winner Never Gives Up
The story of a mother who overcame her cruel fate.
Leaving Exam in November
In December 1989 film director Jiří Krejčík received two letters in which students from a secondary school in the town of Česká Třebová requested his help in a conflict with the then school headmaster, who after November 17th obstructed the students revolution iniciative. Krejčík came with cameraman Jiří VOjta in January 1990 to Česká Třebová and shot reminiscences of the November revolution with participants of the past evets.
Women at the Turn of the Millennium - Pleasure without the Risk 1
A portrait of prostitutes who manage to be confident and composed in their lives and in an amateur theatre presentation.
Women at the Turn of the Millennium - Pleasure without the Risk 2
A portrait of prostitutes who manage to be confident and composed in their lives and in an amateur theatre presentation.
Women at the Turn of the Millennium - Bára B. Live
A portrait of popular Czech singer Bára Basiková.
The Lost Soul of a Nation - Loss of Decency (Women)
Documentary film on the crimes of communism committed on various social groups.
The Lost Soul of a Nation - Loss of Democracy (Emigrants)
Documentary film on the crimes of communism committed on various social groups.
The Lost Soul of a Nation - Loss of Responsibility (Intellectuals)
Documentary film on the crimes of communism committed on various social groups.
The Lost Soul of a Nation - Loss of Faith (The Church)
Documentary film on the crimes of communism committed on various social groups.
The Lost Soul of a Nation - Loss of Continuity (Executed Descendants)
Documentary film on the crimes of communism committed on various social groups.
Among Blind Fools I, II, III
This documentary trilogy maps the activities of so-called Bratislava work group and the life of rabbi Michal Weissmandel.
Actors
"Documentary made during the filming of Jacek Blawut's debut ""Before Twilight"" features retired actors in a rest home in the town of Skolimów. A spare camera captured old actors waiting to be called on the set. ""The Actors"" is a sincere film about waiting, full of subtle humor. How do the retired actors cope with the fact, they are no longer the stars on the big screen or the center of the stage?"
Women at the Turn of the Millennium - Forte and Piano
A portrait of Czech concert singer Dagmar Pecková.
Alternative Culture: New Age Heroes
A film on the post-Soviet underground.
Alternative Culture: The Cruel and Poor Theatre
The theatre revolution of the 1960s and what remains of it (Living Theatre, USA; Teatr Laboratorium, Poland; Odin Teatret, Denmark).
Nuclear Cathedral
The present and future of atomic energy in the Czech Republic.
Capital Offences II. When Women Murder
Documentary films reconstructing and analyzing the lives of the victims of capital offences and their offenders in the former Czechoslovakia.
Capital Offences III. Killers
Documentary films reconstructing and analyzing the lives of the victims of capital offences and their offenders in the former Czechoslovakia.
The Jaws of Corruption
Documentary film on all forms and expressions of corruption.
On Intimate Matters
Many people after an accident or illness are confident to a wheelchair. This doesn´t mean, however, that they must give up their sex life.
Under the Roof?
The work of the ombudsman is illustrated in the case of 20 Romany families from the town of Hrušov who were affected by the floods in 1997 and still lived in 2001 in damp flood-damaged flats.
With Bureaucracy Forever
Documentary film on whether state administration works as it should and what clerks are needed for.
Welcome to Another Country
The aim of the film is to do away the view that if a child is born disabled, the families entire life becomes a tragedy.
Holocaust - II. The Sound of Sundials
Worl War II - life in the ghettos.
Holocaust - III. Behind the Walls of the Ghetto
Return after the war and development of relations to present.
Stories of Houses: Slavonice
My Home, My Braník
Letters from Provence
Documentary film from Provence based on the book by Czech actor, director and writer Miroslav Horníček.
Nothing More Than Prague - First Trip
Two part series that provides a picture of "the European city of culture" through a collage of reportage and creatively concieved informative sequences with archive clips.
Nothing More Than Prague - Second Trip
Two part series that provides a picture of "the European city of culture" through a collage of reportage and creatively concieved informative sequences with archive clips.
Rises and Falls I, II
Documentary films on the life and work of the three important Czech photographers of the 20th century - Václav Chochola, Karel Ludwig a and Zdeněk Tmej.
Time Work
What are the chances of finding employment in the Czech Republic? Are there many or few work opportunities?
With a Brush and a Machete
This nature film looks at the expedition of Brno-based illustrator and painter Jan Dungel to the Amazon – one of the last blank spots on the map of our planet. He manages to find and, using GPS, measure the location of the little known connection of the Orinoco and Amazon river systems.
Kniha jako osud
A documentary about Czech book-binders Jan Sobotka and Jana Sobotková.
The 13th Chamber of Jaroslav Pouzdar
The 13th Chamber of Vendula Svobodová
Capital Offences I. Without Mercy: Phantom of Chomutov
First part of crime documentaries from Czech TV series "Death Penalty". It reconstructs a story of the most crucial criminal case in Czech modern history that took the great attention of the public and also communist politicians. Czech crime history never recorded such a hunt for unknown series killer than the one which lasted from 1951 till 1958 in the neibourhood of northern Bohemian city Chomutov. For eight years criminalists didn't suceed in identification of a sexual killer who, as was proved later, committed more than 140 crimes. Vaclav Mrazek killed eight women and one couple, raped dozens of teenage girls and tried to sexually attack many other women. In the political atmosphere of the 1950s the communists didn't allow any public warnings or an public police investigation. The reason was that in progressive socialist countries there were no killers, especially not sexual ones. When local women feared to go to work because of the growing numbers of attacks, criminalists decided to check on each man living in or near Chomutov, i.e. 40 000 persons. In spite of this enormous effort the killer escaped the trap moving to another Bohemian city, Kladno. He was eventually arrested thanks to a great luck when a local policeman identified him when he committed a minor crime. To demonstrate instant justice and meet the demands of the public outrage, the killer was put quickly to trial and sentenced, the whole proces took only couple months. Despite criminalists' protests as they hadn't got their investigation finished yet, he was executed on the last day of 1958.
Capital Offences I. Without Mercy: The Case for a Psychiatrist
Documentary films reconstructing and analyzing the lives of the victims of capital offences and their offenders in the former Czechoslovakia.
Capital Offences II. When Women Murder: Victimized
Documentary from Czech TV series "Death Penalty" shows a very specific case from 1973. That year a young woman Olga Hepnarova, 22, decided to kill as many people was possible using a lorry. She drove in a queue of pedestrians who were waiting for tram on the tram stop in Prague 7. She killed eight people and wounded thirty. Immediately after the event she claimed that she had committed it on purpose. She wanted to publicly present that her crime was a revenge. Revenge for what? This was the most important question for the investigators. The answer would have implications for Hepnarova's fate. If she was right and her statement about revenge was correct, she would have been sentenced to death without any doubts. But if she was a menthally ill person she wouldn't be sentenced at all. The film includes contemporary police items and acted reconstruction of the day when Hepnarova committed her crime.
The impulse for the making of this documentary was a 30-year-old amateur film from the life of the Junák organisation of Czech Scouts that was found in a remarkably good condition. The director, a former member of the troop, who had the identity card no.021515, decided to find out what happened to his childhood friends. 35 years after the last camp, he decided to invite all the former participants to the original campsite near the Eliáš weir on the Oslava river, build a camp and live the Scout life for several days, trying out various skills and games. Once again they wear Scout uniforms and, in compliance with the Junák rule - to always tell the truth - tell each other the truth about their lives... There is a top medical doctor, an athlete, a summer film school director, Communist army political leaders and the homeless. We can follow the history of this country through the lives of boys from a little Moravian town.
Industrial Elegy
A visually poetic documentary about people living in the mining colonies in Ostrava that are gradually being shut down. As this world slowly disappears, we also lose the local traditional values, unique experiences and important memories of remarkable people who live very tough lives.
Love Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
A documentary love story. A mother and daughter's view of the relationships between eight couples from various generations over the course of a year. A search for what most connects people, and at the same time divides them. The daughter mostly looks at young couples who are still choosing their life partners. Her mother looks at couples who have come to terms with the decision they made long ago, or are learning how to. A mosaic of human fates connected by the same simple, and yet complicated, desire to love and be loved.
A Czech Phenomenon: Dance Lessons
With a humourous distance, Dancing Lessons examines a phenomenon unique to Czech national culture - dance courses. The director followed a Prague dance class for more than a year - from the signing up, the balls, through to the last class, capturing the transformation of insecure, self-conscious youth into self-confident young ladies and gentlemen.
Sweat and Tears - The Making of the Prague Spring, Opus No. 2
This documentary film is the second in the trilogy Prague Spring Comes Every Year, which disrupts the stereotype in which the world of classical music is presented by the media. The film is made up of four storylines. The story of conductor Sir Charles Mackerras, as he rehearses Janáček's Taras Bulba with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. The second story shows a unique event of two grand pianos being reassembled to form a single instrument, and the concert featuring this instrument. In the third story we are present at an international competition in trombone playing and we watch the mutual attitudes of the competitors. Garrick Ohlsson, a star of the first order, features in the fourth story, which tells about the artist's feelings towards the composer and his endless path to perfection.
Farewell Sun
A deep interpretation of life and work of Czech painter Alén Diviš (1900 - 1956), the film is not a mere portrait or a profile. It is a subjective and abstract picture of his voyages across the world, it is a substance of creative moments. The artist's existence and experience is reflected in moments linked up with the lines of his travels around the world.
On Grandma
A documentary film combining period material with interviews from a 92-year old lady and animated episodes capturing one person's life.
What Language Does the Lord Speak…?
The documentary portrait presents a mountain farmer from Velká Úpa who was shot. The story of Friedrich Kneifel's family mirrors the collective fates of the Sudeten Germans from eastern Krkonoše.
We Are Not Angels, Just Doing Their Job/The Power and the Mystery of Jesuits
The Society of Jesus - the Jesuits - is one of the largest and most important orders of the Catholic Church. Their mission includes pastoral and missionary work, as well as contributions to education, science, culture and the arts. The order dates back to 1534, when it was founded by Ignatius of Loyola. The documentary provides a glimpse at the present state of the Society of Jesus, and it also reveals why the order had been so often considered dangerous.
Battle for Life
A fascinating look at the colourful life of a community which in defiance of difficult circumstances lives life to the fullest. The village of Bystré is situated in a former textile region which is currently in deep crisis - unemployment in certain places has reached over 20% and young people are moving elsewhere.
Troublemakers
Věra Chytilová's documentary film that presents a diverse group of women who comment on various social and political issues.
Women at the Turn of the Millennium - Trapped
Helena Třeštíková is the author of 10 episodes from the series Women on the Brink of the New Millennium, intimate portraits of both successful women and women on the social periphery. The tragic story of a girl named Katka who believes that joy and happiness can be applied through a hypodermic needle. All she is left with is despair. We first meet Katka at a rehab clinic in Němčice, still full of optimism and faith in a drug-free future. The film tries to draw attention to the drug problem from a somewhat different point of view...
Marcela
The extraordinary life of an ordinary woman. The fifth part of a series entitled "Marriage Stories" featured Marcela, whose story started in 1980 at the Prague town hall. Still in black and white, the film follows events over a period of six years. In 1999 we re-enter her life, but shooting has to be interrupted after her daughter Ivana is hit by a train. Four months later, shooting resumes. The audience, moved by her difficult life, decided to help the despairing mother. The film captures the events of the past year.
To Be a Roma Girl
The lifestory of Vojta Lavička - musician and Roma activist.
Women at the Turn of the Millennium - To Be a Romany Woman
The theme of the whole documentary cycle is that of several woman and their and singular fates. The individual parts introduce women who are in their zenith and are enjoyning success and fame are woman who are down and out among the dregs of society; women in enviable, in seemingly ordinary and pitiable situations. The documentaries were made by the time-collection method with shoot taking place during a period of five years. Following the life of a young Roma intellectual, Jarmila Balážová.
Bohemia Docta or The Labyrinth of the World and the Lusthaus of the Heart (A Divine Comedy)
The portrait of Czech "national character and soul" is based on major works from Czech and world culture as well as the large cycle "Slavic Epopee" by Alphonse Mucha. It is the third part of Karel Vachek's tetralogy Little Capitalist, a reflection on the social and spiritual processes taking place in Czech culture. The film raises questions about the future of Czech society as well as individual lives.
In the Center of Film (In the Warmth of Home)
An unconventional look at the 1997 edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
Seekers of a Fixed Point
This documentary is a provisional culmination of a long-term project that aims to capture recent Czech history (1990-2001) by following the lives of four people who were active in the events of 1989.
Suchá Hora
A stylized documentary film tracking the changes in the remotest Slovak village at the very edge of the Orava Region at the Slovak-Polish border. The film's subject can be traced through nearly all of Eastern Europe. It could be referred to as "images from the fringes of an integrated continent". The film is a follow-up to a 20-year-old documentary film about a mountain village which, in the course of a single generation, underwent changes that took generations in most regions of former Czechoslovakia. The local ethnic community is very distinct - sometimes even considered to be a separate nationality of the so-called Goral people - and has strong ties not only to Slovakia but also to Poland and the Czech Republic. To a large extent, the gradual decline of specific folklore points to the loss of identity, which is also the main message of this forthcoming documentary film.
The Shutka Book of Records
Shutka is the largest Roma settlement in the Balkans. At least according to the words of a young local fisherman, who is the main protagonist of this documentary film, shot in co-production with Czech Television. The film is a guide through the streets of Shutka, where in every person we can find at least one national champion, or even world champion, regardless of what it is in. What is important is that each person believes in their uniqueness and others recognize it. In this ever-expanding society, space is made for competing religious representatives such as those participating in a Muslim dervish or the servants of God using the "medium" of Christian tradition. The local homosexual in his colourful wardrobe is no less respected that the greatest pair of lovers - prostitute Kasandra and the elderly Alfonso who enjoys walking around Shutka in a copy of Tito's uniform. This Macedonian settlement, with its difficult-to-estimate population, also has its own music industry: from the recording studio to the workshop for music videos and even some big stars, who due to the active work of local music pirates must earn money in the old-fashioned way - at weddings, circumcision celebrities or funerals.
The Lost Soul of a Nation - The Loss of Tradition (Farmers)
The series of seven hour-long documentaries follows the life stories of political prisoners of the 1950s, but the subject is linked to present-day national soul. The series recalls national losses, the effects of which still persist, and focuses on specific segments of the population which felt the loss most keenly. The series recalls national losses, the effects of which still persist, and focuses on specific segments of the population which felt the loss most keenly. The loss was in human terms, the human pillars upon which democratic society rested and which were razed by the Communists. The elimination from social life of tens of thousands of people in certain categories resulted in the general impoverishment of the national soul. The current state of affairs is the result: many dynamic people simply "aren't available" - to be patriots, organizers, leaders. The film stresses that what Communist persecution sowed is still being reaped, and not only in the national subconscious. The loss of tradition, as the film explores, reawakens memories of the breakdown in the continuity of country lineage and the violent transformation of the countryside.
The Lost Soul of a Nation - Loss of Dignity (Soldiers)
Gripping testimonies of four young Czechoslovak army officers who were imprisoned in the political purges of the 1950s. Having graduated from military academy in the short period between the end of WWII and the start of Communist rule in 1948, they were charged with having allegiance not to the Communist Party, but to the institution of the military and its tradition as guarantor of national dignity. The four men describe in detail their ordeals and experiences in prison and the persecution that followed them even after their release. One of them tried and failed to escape from captivity twice, leading to harsher punishment. Another discovered religious faith, and later created a meditation garden dedicated to the victims of dictatorship. Another survived torment and solitary confinement. This is the first of the seven-part series Before It's Too Late, which chronicles the testimonies of victims of Communist persecution in Czechoslovakia.
Remembering in Reflection (Remembering)
Two documentary films about disease, fear and hope – Reflection (dir. Evald Schorm, 1965) and Remembering (dir. Ivan Vojnár, 2007) – which chime together, in spite of being divided for more than 40 years. This documentary film brings together Evald Schorm and Ivan Vojnár. Schorm's film Zrcadlení inspired Vojnár's film poll that refers back to the search for lost ideals and the personal and social fight against fear. Is physical pain and disease a metaphor for a more general affliction? Schorm's Zrcadlení (1964) shifted the cinéma vérité style closer to a film essay, without aspiring to capture the sociological implications of the subject. Through questions about happiness which he posed to hospital patients, the director turns to the viewer and confronts human existence with the natural flow of time. Jan Špáta's authentic photography with its poetic compositions supplies a new thematic layer to the film; the protagonists often remain outside the camera's view, which helps to add general validity to very personal statements. Ivan Vojnár's project Rozpomínání revisits the hospital environment yet the questions have a clear sociological aspect - the director changes Schorm's "how to live" from its philosophical and figurative meaning into the everyday struggle with social and political realities. The range of respondents is very broad to include all social and age groups. The topics focus on the life in the Czech Republic at the beginning of the 21st century; in addition to questions regarding general values, happiness, sympathy or wealth, Vojnár asks about politics, Czech national character or attitudes to minorities. Authentic, mostly work environments of the protagonists also play an important part in the film.
Holocaust - I. Photographs Stop Time
Development of relations in Czehc society up to World War II.
66 Seasons
A film about the Košice swimming pool, the place where, according to the filmmaker's slogan, "history came to swim." Set between 1936 and 2002, the story reflects historical events that took place in Central and Eastern Europe during that period. Half-naked men and women lived through the 1941 bombing of Košice (in eastern Slovakia), some swimmers never returned from the front lines, and one of the pool's builders died in a concentration camp. The film is dedicated to the memory of the director's grandfather, and the filmmaker and his father make appearances. Using the pool as a backdrop where three generations came to cool off, a kind of "personal theatre" has been created, a space which itself becomes a model for evoking social history...
Citizen Havel Goes on Vacation
This 80-minute documentary recreates a trip across Czechoslovakia. Václav Havel took the trip in 1985 when he was still the country's most prominent dissident. In the course of one week, he was twice thrown into jail for 48 hours of preventive detention and followed by over 300 plainclothed policemen, who would helpfully point out to him the right way whenever he got lost. Contrasted with the authentic Czech TV news of the period (the harvest was going swimmingly), the stories of Havel and his dissident hosts show that you can live a great life even under the staggering pressure of a totalitarian juggernaut. A Czech emigree in Chicago, the writer and screenwriter Jan Novák, who had been awarded the Magnesia Litera prize for a documentary novel OK So Far, created and produced this film.
Bye Bye Shanghai
Distinguished Czech documentarist Jana Boková, who lives in Argentina, decided for her latest film to find out exactly what the word "exile" means. Her first stop is Prague, where after a period of 40 years, she meets up with a friend, the philosopher Václav Belohradský. Their joint recollections of leaving Prague, at that time occupied by forces of Soviet Union, are deftly woven into high-quality archive footage. She also conducts a frank interview in Prague with the lightly intoxicated Vlasta Trešnák, who remembers his torture during the endless interrogations by the state secret police and the need to choose between prison and emigration. This highly personal film examines the lives of several Czech emigrants, including the director herself, considers the various aspects of emigration and reaches the conclusion that, once a person has been uprooted, he can never cultivate his native roots again. "In Paris Věra Linhartová once wrote an essay about the irresolvable nature of emigration. Once you're uprooted you can never take root again. That's true for me too. In recent years, something has been changing though. It's a different generation, people who didn't have to make tough decisions in 1968. The prejudice is disappearing and I decided to come back to Prague through film. Moreover, Prague is impenetrable and exotic to me because I was very young when I left. But the Prague part of the trilogy is not about me. I'm interested in people like Petr Král, people who return after years in emigration. Prague will be viewed from a greater distance, from somewhere halfway to a return."
Women at the Turn of the Millennium: A Winner Never Gives Up
The story of a mother who overcame her cruel fate.
Leaving Exam in November
In December 1989 film director Jiří Krejčík received two letters in which students from a secondary school in the town of Česká Třebová requested his help in a conflict with the then school headmaster, who after November 17th obstructed the students revolution iniciative. Krejčík came with cameraman Jiří VOjta in January 1990 to Česká Třebová and shot reminiscences of the November revolution with participants of the past evets.
Women at the Turn of the Millennium - Pleasure without the Risk 1
A portrait of prostitutes who manage to be confident and composed in their lives and in an amateur theatre presentation.
Women at the Turn of the Millennium - Pleasure without the Risk 2
A portrait of prostitutes who manage to be confident and composed in their lives and in an amateur theatre presentation.
Women at the Turn of the Millennium - Bára B. Live
A portrait of popular Czech singer Bára Basiková.
The Lost Soul of a Nation - Loss of Decency (Women)
Documentary film on the crimes of communism committed on various social groups.
The Lost Soul of a Nation - Loss of Democracy (Emigrants)
Documentary film on the crimes of communism committed on various social groups.
The Lost Soul of a Nation - Loss of Responsibility (Intellectuals)
Documentary film on the crimes of communism committed on various social groups.
The Lost Soul of a Nation - Loss of Faith (The Church)
Documentary film on the crimes of communism committed on various social groups.
The Lost Soul of a Nation - Loss of Continuity (Executed Descendants)
Documentary film on the crimes of communism committed on various social groups.
Among Blind Fools I, II, III
This documentary trilogy maps the activities of so-called Bratislava work group and the life of rabbi Michal Weissmandel.
Actors
"Documentary made during the filming of Jacek Blawut's debut ""Before Twilight"" features retired actors in a rest home in the town of Skolimów. A spare camera captured old actors waiting to be called on the set. ""The Actors"" is a sincere film about waiting, full of subtle humor. How do the retired actors cope with the fact, they are no longer the stars on the big screen or the center of the stage?"
Women at the Turn of the Millennium - Forte and Piano
A portrait of Czech concert singer Dagmar Pecková.
Alternative Culture: New Age Heroes
A film on the post-Soviet underground.
Alternative Culture: The Cruel and Poor Theatre
The theatre revolution of the 1960s and what remains of it (Living Theatre, USA; Teatr Laboratorium, Poland; Odin Teatret, Denmark).
Nuclear Cathedral
The present and future of atomic energy in the Czech Republic.
Capital Offences II. When Women Murder
Documentary films reconstructing and analyzing the lives of the victims of capital offences and their offenders in the former Czechoslovakia.
Capital Offences III. Killers
Documentary films reconstructing and analyzing the lives of the victims of capital offences and their offenders in the former Czechoslovakia.
The Jaws of Corruption
Documentary film on all forms and expressions of corruption.
On Intimate Matters
Many people after an accident or illness are confident to a wheelchair. This doesn´t mean, however, that they must give up their sex life.
Under the Roof?
The work of the ombudsman is illustrated in the case of 20 Romany families from the town of Hrušov who were affected by the floods in 1997 and still lived in 2001 in damp flood-damaged flats.
With Bureaucracy Forever
Documentary film on whether state administration works as it should and what clerks are needed for.
Welcome to Another Country
The aim of the film is to do away the view that if a child is born disabled, the families entire life becomes a tragedy.
Holocaust - II. The Sound of Sundials
Worl War II - life in the ghettos.
Holocaust - III. Behind the Walls of the Ghetto
Return after the war and development of relations to present.
Stories of Houses: Slavonice
My Home, My Braník
Letters from Provence
Documentary film from Provence based on the book by Czech actor, director and writer Miroslav Horníček.
Nothing More Than Prague - First Trip
Two part series that provides a picture of "the European city of culture" through a collage of reportage and creatively concieved informative sequences with archive clips.
Nothing More Than Prague - Second Trip
Two part series that provides a picture of "the European city of culture" through a collage of reportage and creatively concieved informative sequences with archive clips.
Rises and Falls I, II
Documentary films on the life and work of the three important Czech photographers of the 20th century - Václav Chochola, Karel Ludwig a and Zdeněk Tmej.
Time Work
What are the chances of finding employment in the Czech Republic? Are there many or few work opportunities?
With a Brush and a Machete
This nature film looks at the expedition of Brno-based illustrator and painter Jan Dungel to the Amazon – one of the last blank spots on the map of our planet. He manages to find and, using GPS, measure the location of the little known connection of the Orinoco and Amazon river systems.
Kniha jako osud
A documentary about Czech book-binders Jan Sobotka and Jana Sobotková.
The 13th Chamber of Jaroslav Pouzdar
The 13th Chamber of Vendula Svobodová
Capital Offences I. Without Mercy: Phantom of Chomutov
First part of crime documentaries from Czech TV series "Death Penalty". It reconstructs a story of the most crucial criminal case in Czech modern history that took the great attention of the public and also communist politicians. Czech crime history never recorded such a hunt for unknown series killer than the one which lasted from 1951 till 1958 in the neibourhood of northern Bohemian city Chomutov. For eight years criminalists didn't suceed in identification of a sexual killer who, as was proved later, committed more than 140 crimes. Vaclav Mrazek killed eight women and one couple, raped dozens of teenage girls and tried to sexually attack many other women. In the political atmosphere of the 1950s the communists didn't allow any public warnings or an public police investigation. The reason was that in progressive socialist countries there were no killers, especially not sexual ones. When local women feared to go to work because of the growing numbers of attacks, criminalists decided to check on each man living in or near Chomutov, i.e. 40 000 persons. In spite of this enormous effort the killer escaped the trap moving to another Bohemian city, Kladno. He was eventually arrested thanks to a great luck when a local policeman identified him when he committed a minor crime. To demonstrate instant justice and meet the demands of the public outrage, the killer was put quickly to trial and sentenced, the whole proces took only couple months. Despite criminalists' protests as they hadn't got their investigation finished yet, he was executed on the last day of 1958.
Capital Offences I. Without Mercy: The Case for a Psychiatrist
Documentary films reconstructing and analyzing the lives of the victims of capital offences and their offenders in the former Czechoslovakia.
Capital Offences II. When Women Murder: Victimized
Documentary from Czech TV series "Death Penalty" shows a very specific case from 1973. That year a young woman Olga Hepnarova, 22, decided to kill as many people was possible using a lorry. She drove in a queue of pedestrians who were waiting for tram on the tram stop in Prague 7. She killed eight people and wounded thirty. Immediately after the event she claimed that she had committed it on purpose. She wanted to publicly present that her crime was a revenge. Revenge for what? This was the most important question for the investigators. The answer would have implications for Hepnarova's fate. If she was right and her statement about revenge was correct, she would have been sentenced to death without any doubts. But if she was a menthally ill person she wouldn't be sentenced at all. The film includes contemporary police items and acted reconstruction of the day when Hepnarova committed her crime.
A long-time producer of documentary films at Czech TV. Most of Robert Sedláček's films were made in her production or co-production, including, e.g., Skinheads (1997); Siberia at the End of the Millennium (1998); At the Time (1999); At the Time 2: Opportunity for Slovakia (2000). Also producer of many documentaries by a number of other directors, e.g., The Love Who I Am Leaving (1998) by Jan Špáta.
Czech TV
Kavčí hory
140 70 Prague 4
Kavčí hory
140 70 Prague 4