Movies

Once Upon a Time in the East

David vs. Goliath
That’s probably how you could describe the fight led by Captain Miky Miko (Alexander Bárta), a reclusive police operative who skillfully moves on the edge of the law in the wild atmosphere of the East Slovak underworld in the early 1990s. Local mafia gangs covered by secret agreements with the SIS (Slovak Information Service), businessmen and the local police live in a fragile symbiosis here – generously rewarded for turning a blind eye to crimes.
Mike’s environment shaped him to trust no one. But when his “naughty” partner Igor Molnár (Juraj Loj) is assigned to the system, he discovers that they are similar in many ways. They are part of the mechanism they want to change because they are tired of catching criminals who will be released the next day – even with incriminating evidence.
However, the reaction of the compromised system is not long in coming and a sequence of events is triggered which ends in tragedy halfway through. How it will be on the next journey, the audience will only see on the big screen. But they say that revenge is the best motivation, although sometimes losing can mean certain death.

Premiere in Košice Steel Arena 27.1.2024, in cinemas from February 2024
The official website of the film with a link to tickets for the gala premiere here – www.vojnapolicajtov.sk

Movies

The Horse

On Christmas Day, teacher Dušička discovers a horse in his second-floor apartment. He doesn’t remember how it got there, he doesn’t know how to get rid of it. However, thanks to the presence of the circus shimmy, he discovers the true face of the people he lives with, as they lose their masks in the highly unusual situation. He becomes aware of the pressures he has to withstand in his personal and professional life, he understands that his environment forces him to make compromises that are contrary to himself. He gets into conflict with his girlfriend who wants to own him, he encounters problems at school where he is being forced to change the way he teaches, he struggles with his neighbours who impose their bourgeois principles on him. Thanks to the bizarre situation, he realises that he is being manipulated by his surroundings and gradually strays from the path he set out on in his youth. The Horse is a film about inner freedom, its various forms and its limits.

In the cinema: 15.12.2022, in cinemas in Slovakia from 2.11 2023

Movies

The Man with Hare Ears

Josef is a writer aged sixty, who is convinced that nothing can surprise him anymore. One evening, though, his phone rings and he finds himself caught up in a series of events, that turn his world upside-down. His best friend tries to commit suicide; his young girlfriend Katka tells him she’s pregnant; and the man with hare ears – his alter ego from one of his stories – starts to appear to him in everyday life situations to help him unveil his true identity. Can he come to terms with who he really is?

Movies

The Scumbag

A teenager Broňa, a supposed drug addict, disappears from a resocialization centre. Her roommate Naďa, who escapes, tries to tell the police about being forced into drug taking and sex with politicians, but is turned away. She finds a journalist, who starts to unravel a long-standing and unthinkable web of crime, gangsters and extortion in connection to the prime minister, his political party and a businessman, who acquires power through manipulation and for whom blackmailing is just another kind of business. An evil force, which openly destroys the nation, is unveiled. But can the truth prevail amongst those who only heed for money and power? Does God turn a blind eye to murder and greed?

Movies

The Glass Room

At the start of 1930s, a remarkable modernist house is built in Czechoslovakia for a wealthy Jewish businessman Viktor Landauer, his wife Liesel and their children. The family life dreamt up by Liesel, bathed in light, clarity and peace of the “Glass Room” – the focal point of the house – augmented by a relationship to her inseparable friend Hana, does not last long.

Sense of unfulfilled love, discovery of betrayal and Nazi menacing shadow overtakes this transparent space. In panic brought on by the German invasion, the Landauers flee their home in dramatic circumstances, leaving Hana and their friends behind. An affair with Stahl, a German engineer, gives Hana chance to return to the magical Glass Room, where her memories of Liesel and the pre-war days of hope are brought back to life. The forced separation of Liesel and Hana seems to strengthen their feelings for each other. Despite the war destroying the house, will hope, symbolised by the Glass Room, remain?

Movies

The Interpreter

Eighty-year-old interpreter Ali Ungár comes across a book by a former SS officer, in which the author describes his wartime activities in Slovakia. Ali realises one of the passages probably recounts the execution of his parents. He sets out to visit the former SS-man living in Vienna. But instead of the murderer of his parents, Ali finds only the Nazi’s son Georg, who has distanced from his father’s past throughout his entire life.

However, the interpreter’s visit stirs his curiosity, and so he decides to find out who exactly his father was. And the two old men – the ascetic Ali and the bon-vivant Georg – embark on a mutual journey in an attempt to find surviving witnesses of the wartime tragedy. Their different views of the world and dissimilar life experiences create a bittersweet tension.

Ali and Georg realise, that despite their utter differences, they are equally painfully affected by the wartime tragic events… Towards the end of their search, they eventually find out that the actual circumstances of the death of Ali’s parents were somewhat different… At the end of their journey, they start to silently understand and respect each other. Deep within, they both come to redefine their own identity.

Movies

A Prominent Patient

This drama presents hidden excerpts from the life of the Czech diplomat Jan Masaryk. Jan is a man who tries to stand out from the shadow of his father and at the same time identify himself with the “surrogate father” Edvard Beneš, the second president of Czechoslovakia. After “days of betrayal” leading up to the Munich Agreement, which Jan could not prevent, the depressed, internally divided son of the first Czechoslovak president leaves for the USA, where he ends up in a sanatorium run by a German psychiatrist Dr. Stein. An acquaintance with an American journalist Marcia Davenport seems to show him with a new life impulse.

Movies

The Constitution

The Constitution is an intimate love story of three different people, in terms of their social status, sexual orientation, political views and religions. What connects them is not only the fact, that they all live in the same building in the city of Zagreb, but also their often mutually confronted demons from the past; demons which force them to live in the past rather than in the present.

Vjeko (60) is a high-school teacher who has devoted his entire life to the study of the Croatian history and language. He lives in a neglected apartment with his father Hrvoje (91). During WWII., his father was an Ustasa – an officer in the Croatian fascist army – and has now been bedridden for over 6 years. Vjeko recently tragically lost the love of his life, Bobo (54). Lacking any will to live, and seriously preoccupied with suicidal thoughts, the only thing Vjeko enjoys are late night walks, during which he wanders through the empty city wearing makeup and female clothes.

One night a group of young men stop him, beat him up and leave him lying on the street. In the hospital, Maja (48), a nurse living in the basement of the same building, recognizes him and takes care of him. After Maja helps him come home, she starts taking care of his immobile father too. In return, Vjeko agrees to help Maja’s husband, a police officer Ante (50). Thus, begins a story about three very different people who live in the same building and who are unexpectedly and against their will brought together and made dependent on each other.

Movies

Dodgeball

The film, an adaptation of a bestselling novel by Michal Viewegh, is a comedy about friendship, love, beauty, ugliness, and search for happiness. In several timelines, the film tells the story of friends from high school, going through various stages of their lives together.

The ostensibly banal situation of a class reunion opens the way to both sentimental memories, unfulfilled desires and dreams. The plot revolves around three friends – Jeff, Skippy and Tom – whose ups and downs and relationship breakups keep bringing them back to a shared bachelor apartment. Their counterparts in the story are two women – the class beauty Eva, who becomes the object of desire of all three friends, and the ugly Hujerová, whose ironic attitude to herself and life in general gives her the ability to survive in a world, that prizes beauty above anything else, and who finds her own path to happiness.

Movies

Angels

A group of four angels try to guide their human protégées through their hardest day.

Karel, a driving instructor, living in a broken marriage with Marie, is compensating for his suffering with fantasies about his school driving student Ester. She has just buried her husband though and isn’t ready for a new relationship.

Zdeněk plans to kill himself that evening because he finds out that his friend Filip is having affair with his wife. Zdeněk is not the only one who has taken this badly: his esoterically inclined mother has also fallen out with her best friend Marie, since Filip is Marie’s son. In a few hours’ time, destiny will tear apart this tangled web of relationships.

Even though the angels are supposed to be impartial observers, they can’t help trying to salvage at least something out of the situation. Invisible to the human eye, these guardians of our fate are surprised by the obstacles we willingly put in both our and their way.

Movies

Revival

Revival is a comedy that tells a story of four musicians whose rock band “SMOKE” broke apart in 1972 due to unclear circumstances, and who eventually decide for its spectacular comeback.

The motivations are various – money, desire for lost glory, desire to help a friend, but also fear of infirmity, illness and death. But whatever the original motives may be, these aging men begin to play again and as they begin to enjoy the music, friendship and life on the stage (and beyond), their plans and ambitions begin to change. And after all they change themselves too. At the end they manage to reveal one big mystery – why the group broke apart in 1972.

Movies

The Holy Quaternity

Two ostensibly ordinary middle-aged couples, Marie and Vitek, and Dita and Ondra, are linked by more than just a lifelong friendship, a shared house in a small town and same-aged adolescent children: they are linked by love. Both men, Ondra and Vitek, who are work colleagues, sincerely love their wives, but they both also harbour a secret yearning for the other one’s wife. As soon as they finally find the courage to confess this secret – and when it moreover comes to light that the two women have the same feelings – it’s just a matter of time before their long-suppressed feelings come out…

Although initially it seems that their everyday lives leave no room for showing their feelings, when by a stroke of fortune the four of them find themselves on a Caribbean island, neither of them can resist the temptation – not even the devout Marie, for whom this “forbidden love” clearly presents a painful personal dilemma.

After returning from the exotic paradise the two couples have to confront small-town prejudice, horror of Ondra’s parents and the uncompromising outraged reaction of Marie’s youngest daughter.

Movies

Perfect Days

Celebrity hairdresser Erika Oskar might seem to have it all: a successful business, her own TV show, a fabulous loft apartment in a trendy part of Prague, designer clothes, lots of good friends and an ever-loving mother.

However, as Erika reaches her 40th birthday, here comes the deafening ticking of her biological clock. Erika wants a baby. The trouble is, she needs a man… but her ex-husband has a new girlfriend and her best friend is gay. Then she meets a 26-year-old stranger who seems more than ready to oblige…

Perfect days is a charming comedy with utterly contemporary, and rather adult content, addressing the issues of parenthood, homosexuality and generation gaps. There is compassion, anger and humour at the heart of every human relationship. This film is about spontaneity and understanding, revealing in the end that the ultimate way for our happiness is not in games we play, but within our close intimate relationships with others.

Movies

Gypsy

Adam, a fifteen-year-old Roma boy from a shantytown, finds out his father was killed. The same night, Adam’s dead father appears to him. He embraces Adam and tells him he loves him. The father asks Adam to help his mother and look after his younger brothers. As he is leaving, he tells him that the man who killed him stole his watch.

Adam’s life changes overnight. He is suddenly a grown-up, who has to earn money. His friends leave the village, but he stays to help his mother. He has only two pleasures in life: boxing and the dark-eyed girl, Julka. The boy’s world however soon becomes smaller as he is thrown out of the boxing club because of his trouble with the police and as he becomes alienated from Julka, who no longer understands him.

One day Zigo, his father’s brother, pulls out a pocket watch and places it in front of Adam. The boy realises that Zigo was behind his father’s death, but nobody believes him. Adam confronts his uncle about his father’s death. Zigo cynically tells him that his father had to die because he was sticking his nose into other people’s business. Will Adam seize the opportunity of a moment, in which Zigo believes he has convinced Adam?

Movies

Innocence

Love of all kinds motivates the actions of our protagonists Behind each type of love, however, lies a single, narrow, personal point of view, one personally experienced truth. Can a picture of love in its entirety be assembled from these scraps of personal truth? Some fragments of the picture will always be missing.

The lead protagonist, Tomáš, is a post-accident therapist in a paediatric clinic. One of his patients, Olinka, falls in love with him and writes a diary about her fantasies. Her oversensitive mother reads it, overreacts and notifies the police.

One day, Tomáš is a respected doctor working at a leading clinic, a man in the best years of his life. The next day however he wakes up in custody, accused of a serious crime, that is hard to contradict. He loses his freedom and the trust of those around him. All the threads that tie him to the world begin to snap, one after the other, and the sky comes crashing down on him and his dearest. The ex-husband of Tomas’s wife, Lada, is a police detective. Fate serves him up an opportunity to get a revenge.

At the end however, Lada proves Olinka was lying and vindicates Tomáš. But after that comes to light a real Tomas´s life story – a secret love triangle within his closest family. Tomas finds himself caught in a new, private trap: he is forced to take responsibility for his actions.

Movies

Novel for Men

Novel for Men is a tragicomedy about three siblings whose lives have changed dramatically after loss of their parents during the Communist regime. Each one is completely different, yet they all try to stick together. That is, until they learn that one of them, Bruno, is terminally ill, with very little time left. Cyril, his older brother, decides to organise a luxurious week-long trip to the High Tatra Mountains in Slovakia. The excursion devolves into an exercise of failed communication, revealing latent desires and conflicts.

Movies

Tomorrow there will be …

The opera Tomorrow There Will Be… by Aleš Březina and Jiří Nekvasil premiered at the Kolowrat Theater on April 9, 2008. It immediatelly became one of the most successful productions of the year not only for the aduiences but also for critics. The authors won the Sazka and Divadelní noviny Award for their work, and in the Divadelní noviny poll, the opera was declared the second best production of 2008. The musical story is composed of period documents and quotations from actual court files. The production is dominated by suggestive performances of the legendary actress Sona Červená and Jan Mikušek. The music composer Aleš Březina, who is behind the musical composition of the Czech most successful films of recent years (I Served the King of England, We Must Help Ourselves, Buttoners, Up and Down Beauty in Trouble, etc.) wrote the opera-process Tomorrow There Will Be… for the actress Soňa Červená. One of the most popular and successful Czech film directors Jan Hřebejk directed the film recording of this theatre opera performance.

Movies

True Story of Juro Jánošík and Tomáš Uhorčík

Young Jánošík, devastated by war experiences and disappointed by love, joins a gang of bandits. Soon he becomes the group’s leader and is recognized as a brave and honourable commander, as he never kills anyone: he robs from the wealthy and gives to the poor.

Alongside fame, he also begins to enjoy popularity with women. But Jánošík’s success sparks jealousy in one his gang members, the greedy and brutal Huncaga, who betrays Jánošík. The story of Jánošík, a legendary “Central European Robin Hood”, is based on authentic 18th-century documents and romantic legends.

Movies

The Case of Unfaithful Clara

A comedy drama about jealousy and intrigues. Luca, a young talented Italian musician, lives in Prague with his fiancée Clara, a very beautiful and young university student of whom he is persistently and insanely jealous. His obsession and suspicion cause him to hire a private detective to track Clara and find any evidence of infidelity.

Movies

Inside Hana’s Suitcase

A poignant story of two young children who grew up in pre-WWII Czechoslovakia and the terrible events that they had to endure as a result of their Jewish origin. Based on the internationally acclaimed book “Hana’s Suitcase”, this film is an effective blend of documentary with dramatic techniques.

In addition to the story of George and Hana Brady, Inside Hana’s Suitcase tells the present-day story of “The Small Wings”, a group of Japanese children, and how their tenacious teacher, Fumiko Ishioka, helped them solve the mystery of Hana Brady, whose name was painted on an old battered suitcase that they received from the notorious Polish death camp, Auschwitz.

The film’s plot unfolds as told through contemporary young storytellers who act as the omniscient narrators. They seamlessly transport us through 70 years of history back and forth across three continents whilst telling a story of unspeakable sadness but also of shining hope. This is a Holocaust story unlike others, which provides a contemporary global perspective and lessons to be learned for a better future.

Directed by award-winning filmmaker, Larry Weinstein, Inside Hana’s Suitcase is a powerful journey full of mystery and memories, brought to life through the first–hand perspectives of Fumiko, Hana’s brother George, and of Hana herself.

Movies

Kawasaki’s Rose

Pavel Josek, an eminent scientist and former dissident, is due to receive a state honour for bravery. During the filming of a TV documentary about his life, it comes to light that at the beginning of the 1970s – under pressure from the secret police – he played a part in discrediting a former friend, who was ultimately forced to emigrate. The film recounts events that took place over thirty years ago without using a single flashback. The family drama sheds light on the practices employed by the secret police to discredit its opponents. An emotional story of guilt and atonement, the pitfalls of memory and the need for forgiveness. A Czech answer to “The Lives of Others” distantly alludes to the affair implicating writer Milan Kundera as an informer.

Movies

Operation Danube

Operation Danube was the code name for the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. Among Polish tanks, which were part of this invasion and whose aim was to “liberate” the neighbouring Czechoslovakia, is also an old tank called “Ladybug”. The crew of Ladybug, who falsely believe that they are in a rush to help the Czechs to avoid the danger of revolution, get hopelessly lost on their way and break through a wall of a pub in a small border village somewhere in Czechia.

The inhabitants of the region do not hide their resistance to the occupation. However, when both parties find out that they are the victims of the situation and that they are able to agree with each other, the participants begin to develop a variety of relationships. They repair the tank, try Czech national food and maybe, even fall in love. The film does not focus on portraying contemporary ideology but shows history from the perspective of common people.

Movies

Shameless

Oskar is a well-known television weather reporter, who goes through a promiscuous period of bachelorhood after getting divorced from his wife Zuzana. There is still however one woman, whose heart he has been unable to conquer: his colleague Eva, a married presenter from the morning show. Oskar tries to entice her by rather sordid means: with the help of an astrologer Sandra, he first puts the idea into Eva’s head that they are cosmically predestined for one another – and then he convinces her to send her husband Matěj and her daughter for a weekend to the mountains.

For his plot to be successful, he then falsifies the weather forecast and pretends in front of the whole country, that the weekend is going to be sunny… in the meanwhile however, Oskar’s ex-wife Zuzana gets together with Matěj with the hearty encouragement of Oskar’s mother…

Oskar finds himself feeling young and free again, enjoying life full of alcohol and sex. He starts working as a taxi driver, spends lot of time with a prostitute Simona and soon becomes a lover of a famous singer Nora, who is 20 years older and thanks to whom he becomes famous for a while. But is this really the happiness he was searching for?

Movies

Such a normal family

Four generations of the Hanák family live together in a secluded hunting lodge. One completely normal family afternoon, the younger daughter Káča informs the family that she is expecting a child. Zdeněk upon hearing the news decides to behave like an honest man and marry Káča. However, his mother does not understand this to be the right solution, so Zdeněk becomes another inhabitant of the Hanák family house. The family however intends to observe the new member very carefully. A number of pitfalls and tests await Zdeněk. Will he survive happily all the way to the wedding or will living with such a normal family prove to be beyond his power?

The feature film Such a Normal Family is based on one of the most popular Czech television series and novels by Fan Vavřincová. The film builds upon the best from the television series whilst at the same time enriching the story with new situations and twists.

It is a story about ridiculous human weaknesses, comic and absurd situations that must necessarily be met by the coexistence of several generations, but above all about belonging, tolerance and love that keeps the family together even in the most difficult situations.

Movies

At Your Own Risk

An owner of a travel agency specializing in extreme sports gets an offer for an interesting job – rafting down the dangerous Black River, running through rugged canyons of the Balkan Mountains. The client, Sasha, who initiated the whole expedition has a very serious reason for wanting to go to the area where one Czech paddler had died under mysterious circumstances some years ago. For Sasha, the journey bears almost forgotten secrets, associated with a family tragedy, which however gives him a chance to finally learn the truth.

A group of people from various backgrounds are brought together for this trip, for whom it’s only a wild adventure. In the following days, however, they have to go not only to the bottom of their physical strength, but also to grasp the meaning of fairness, courage, friendship, love and the ability to deal with the truth, whatever it might be. Rafting becomes a battle with nature, but also conflict with the law, with their own forces and their own conscience. The trip, full of stressful and agitated situations fundamentally changes each one’s point of view on life.

An exciting story with a mysterious and unravelling plot – a group of people meet in battle with natural elements, law enforcement and their own limitations.

Movies

Roming

Roming is a road comedy about a journey of three Roma from the north of the Czech Republic to Slovakia. Jura is a modern young man with rational thinking, studying at a university. He cannot believe when his father tells him that he had arranged his marriage with the daughter of his best friend years ago and now his father wants him to go and meet his bride in Slovakia.

After some time, Jura gives in to his father’s emotional blackmailing. With Stano, a temperamental family friend, they set out on a journey across the country in an old ramshackle van.

Movies

I Served the King of England

The film focuses on two parallel stories. The first follows youthful exploits and gradual maturing of an ambitious little man before War and during the German occupation when, in love and guided by stupidity rather than opportunism, he finds himself on the side of the occupying power.

The second story, interlinked with the first, concerns only a short period in his later life when, after years in prison, he seeks peace and solitude in an abandoned German village, whose inhabitants were expelled after the war. His peace is only briefly disturbed by the arrival of a young working-class woman. Her youth and vitality bring back memories of his amorous adventures as a young man.

Movies

Holiday Makers

Holiday Makers is a comedy, telling a story of people who are brought together on a bus travel to their vacation in Croatia. Among tour participants, we have Jolana, a young, sweet and fun woman, who is discontent with her appearance. She has decided to bring her parents along, whose marriage has become stereotypical.

Two enchanting older women also set out on the trip to Croatia. Their characters combine nostalgia and memories of their youth with a more than sober view of their own uncompromisingly fleeting years.

The star of the bus trip is a musician Max, who is using the trip to deal with his creative crisis and fatigue from short-term love affairs. Perhaps because of this, he has set off with his friends, the homosexual pair Ignace and Oskar. The tour guide Pamela sees to the satisfaction of the tour participants.

Movies

From Subway with Love

This romantic comedy presents a story of two women, young Laura, an editor at a woman’s weekly, and her widowed mother, a translator-interpreter named Jana. The two of them tirelessly seek for Mr. Right. Having once lived through an intense relationship with a ‘typical’ Czech man, Jana intentionally avoids Czech men. She searches for her dream foreigner, while long-sufferingly warding off the tragicomic advances of her good-natured neighbor Žemla.
After several unsuccessful attempts, Laura falls in love with Oliver, a forty-year-old who works as an ad agency idea man. Little does she suspect that twenty years ago Oliver was her mother’s true love…

Movies

King of Thieves

A Ukrainian father sells his 9-year-old son Barbu and his older sister Mimma to superficially jolly yet unscrupulous showman Caruso, who promises that both talented children will be featured in his Berlin-based Circus. He smuggles kids across the border and then he leaves the girl at a brothel, and instead of the promised circus training, he initiates Barbu into a life of crime.

A strange relationship grows between the man and the boy. This harshly realistic, yet moving and gentle story of a modern Oliver Twist was inspired by the actual lives of children that the director encountered in Italy and Germany in the 90’s.

Movies

Quartetto

The main protagonists of the story are a mother and her three daughters. The mother is a bossy woman: she arouses respect, but her daughters do not understand her. And even though they desire her love and friendship, they are unable to get closer to her. They cannot understand why their mother could not love them all the same way without always choosing a favourite daughter for a certain limited time and then tossing her away, like a toy. They do not understand their mother’s discontent with her own life, nor do they know anything about her ignorant husband, unfulfilled desire to build her own career, or her secret love for a young man.

This story is framed by a tragic event: an incurable disease of the mother. Upon hearing the news, all three daughters return to their old house where they grew up. On the background of this unpleasant event, they are all forced to confront each other and seek reconciliation.

Movies

Landscape

At the beginning, a miracle occurs, and a baby is brought back to life. Nevertheless, happiness and joy in this Landscape country is slowly diminishing. War is coming: three armies pass through, as if the Landscape was the central battlefield.

With the end of war, people are promised equality for all, but soon a new communist regime begins and shreds their hopes. The workshop of tailor Ondráš is taken away from him by the state and he himself is set to prison as an enemy of the state. Priests are also arrested. The Landscape remains without God.

The soil of the Landscape is slowly narrowing down with growing numbers of souls joining the local cemetery. People, birds and animals are diminishing. This film is about a Landscape, which seems to have never existed: no one remembers it, no one is talking about it.

Movies

The Magnificent Six

Feature film The Magnificent Six is composed of six short films, by three Czech and three Slovak authors:

The Magic Bell: Residents of Podkrkavice have donated to the Tibetan king a special type of yoghurt and in return he gave them a magic bell. The bell has since ushered in the village every morning to which all the villagers have joyfully sang. During a festivity for little Susan and her elephant, the soldiers sneaked into the village from a nearby town in Hungary, and the bell was stolen, melted down and made into cannon. When Susan saw how much the people miss the bell, she decides to travel with her elephant to search for the bill, even at the end of the world.

If not, then not: Film about elephant training, and how worthless it is to lose one’s temper as a result of unimportant things.

Tomík: An absurd story about an exhibitionist and his parents.

Dreamers: A story about first complications in a young marriage.

Prague Nocturne: A film showing the neurotic feeling of a city.

Thieves: Oleg is watching reality in his neighbourhood from his apartment.

Movies

All My Loved Ones

A story of a Jewish-Czech family set before the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia. After initial denial of the looming danger, the family is unable to find a way out of the country upon realizing the reality of the imminent Nazi threat. An uncle in the family meets Nicholas Winton, the true-to-life (not-fictional) British humanitarian who, just before the start of the Second World War, organized rescue of several hundred Jewish children from German-occupied Czechoslovakia and likely death in the Holocaust.

The operation was later known as the Czech Kindertransport. The storyline focuses heavily on Silberstein family members, with Nicholas Winton (portrayed by Rupert Graves) appearing briefly in key scenes towards the end of the film.

Movies

The Lake Queen

A film tale about love for which Prince Viktor travelled all the way to the bottom of a treacherous lake. An evil Lake Queen, wishing to marry prince Viktor, decides to turn seven princesses into swans and imprison them in her castle at the bottom of a deep lake. One of them, Princess Odette, manages to escape. She is however wounded by Stephen, the servant of Prince Viktor, who enchanted by this girl, takes her back to the castle with him. There, Redbeard, the counselor of the Lake Queen, spots her and abducts her back to the Lake Empire. There the queen condemns her to hard work. The girl has to count the pearls that the abducted children collect, day and night. Despite his father’s wishes to marry the Lake Queen, Prince Viktor decides to look for the lost girl Odette. With the help of a magic potion, he meets her in his dream and decides to save her and the other princesses from the clutches of the Lake Queen.

Movies

Orbis Pictus

The main protagonist is a sixteen-year-old Tereza. A girl with a simple, even childish, view of the world, yet gifted with fantasy and spontaneous happiness. One day she is forced to leave the vocational school for tailors she’s been attending. She losses all her life certainties and leaves an environment, in which she did not have to make any decisions for herself – an environment she understood.

She decides to go up to the capital and find her mother who has not cared for her for years. The only lead she has is an old map into which Tereza notes down all her adventures. A strange journey across Slovakia turns out to be her maturity test. She experiences a lot of incredible and mysterious adventures that make her realise a great deal about herself as well as our weird world. From the very beginning Tereza gets to face really strange situations. In each one of them she finds a newly discovered view on the primary things in our lives.

Orbis pictus attempts to create a modern picaresque film documentary that would give name to present our world in a special symbolical way. The line between the real world and illusion is often crossed, the everyday reality dissolves into an absurd tragicomic mysticism. The contrast between the traditional narrative form and its modern content should provide a source of delicate humour to show the story from an easy and playful perspective.

Movies

The Firebird

Prince Afron and his younger brother Otmar bring a gift to King Jorgen’s castle, the Firebird, which sings only at full moon, summoning love and intimidating death. In Jorgens kingdom, Afron falls in love with a beautiful girl, Princess Elena. However, the evil sorcerer Skeleton and the lordly prince Wolf also long for her. As Afron fights Wolf, Skeleton kidnaps the princess, and King Jorgen promises reward for saving her and bringing her back to the kingdom. Afron and his brother Otmar embark on a dangerous journey to free Princess Elena from the dark spells of Skeleton.

Movies

Blue Heaven

A poetic comedy about tree women of different generations and nationalities. These three women live in between the city and the countryside and struggle to cope with the daily problems of a forced coexistence. Out of a sincere effort to help one another comes pain – they would like to understand one another but are not always able to do so. Each one strives for happiness.

There is something else, too. Something, which constantly disrupts their apparently peaceful existence: men, who come and go. But there is only one Mr. Right. And it is because of men that they all suffer and make mistakes. These mistakes have their origins in the past but are destined to reappear… Throughout the story, stars fall, apples ripen, fires burn in the furnace, cats wail, and unfulfilled dreams die.

In the end, it as if the women have found what they were looking for and the stork might once again settle on the chimney, a symbol of new beginnings, new hope and understanding, the solidarity between parents and children.

Movies

Seize the Day

The title of the film UŽ, which actually means “already”, is used as a shortcut of the words “Užívej život” (Carpe Diem) by the underworld of the Karlín district in Prague. Prostitutes, pimps and thieves: a world in which Valentine, an ordinary girl, accidentally finds herself. This new life brings her incredible experiences, and a cop who falls in love with her. But that’s too much for her pimp.

Movies

…Neither Death Can Reap

The story of two urban intellectuals who experience a number of grotesque and comic situations caused by a clash of two worlds, rural and urban.

A typical bureaucratic official from the Prague Ministry, Vilém Smutný, and his wife Janka find themselves inadvertently in the village of Horňácko. While Vilém tries in vain to return back to the “real civilization”, Janka feels good among the quirky Horňáky residents. But even a selfish bureaucrat gradually realizes that life also has other dimensions than those he has professed so far…

Movies

The Garden

A thirty year old Jakub is overwhelmed by his never ending problems: he is incapable of resolving his relationship with his lover Tereza, who is married to another man, he is continuously dissatisfied with his job and he cannot come to terms with his father with whom he lives in the same apartment. Jakub decides to change his life and thus leaves to an abandoned village house owned by his grandfather. The house surrounded by a magnificent garden slowly conquers him with its magical powers.

Movies

A Passionate Kiss

A thirty-year-old Hana finds herself in a life crisis. After discovering infidelity of her husband Igor, her life, subjected to her husband is suddenly in doubts. Hana goes through a whole chain of unexpected encounters, that force her to make a crucial life decision: she must choose between her comfortable but empty marriage, or lifetime care for her ill son.

Movies

A Fountain for Susan 2

Fountain for Susan 2 is the sequel to the successful musical film from 1985. Susan is grown up now and has experienced pain of life. As a result of choosing wrong friends, she ended up in prison. After her release, she tries to start fresh. She meets a friendly driver Juraj, but when it seems that she has found what she was looking for, he leaves her to try his luck in pop music. Susan must defend herself against her former partner Rony, who is now a wealthy gangster trying to seduce her. This musical film offers everything from action scenes, shootouts, fights for love and friendships to arms smuggling, mafia a handful of corrupt policemen and judiciary.

Movies

Everything I Love

A poetic story of a middle-aged man who feels a need of a resolute change in his life full of vacillation and indifference. He is at a standstill. Unemployed and always fighting with his ex-wife, he also has to take care of his teenage son and his aging parents who need his help as well. It seems like the only way to escape this vicious circle is to go with the proposal of a young English woman and move to England with her.

Movies

Rochade

An English businessman, Paul Grumbach, living in Vienna, travels to Bratislava as a mediator in illegal arms trade, where the state police becomes interested in him. A state police agent, beautiful woman called Zdena, pretends to have coincidentally met him, in order to get information about the leader of the organization Paul works for. But the situation gets complicated as they fall for each other.

Theatre

Bio-wife

Vladimír Fekar, playwright: “A seemingly humorous, but definitely grotesque and funny story about how a writer Mojmír gradually falls all the way to the bottom his wife’s value ladder, how Cinderella can turn into a wild and eccentric woman, and what to do when women pee standing up. A play about a comic clash of two lifestyles and ideas how one’s contemporary normal life should look like.”

Theatre

Novel for Women

The world of a 22-year-old Laura is nothing special: she lives in a small apartment in a Prague housing estate, which she shares with her mother. Fortunately for Laura, her mother often travels around the world, because she hates Czech men, almost as much as she hates plastic bags. Laura has a slowly fading relationship with Rickie, who sells mobile phones on Národní třída in Prague, long evening phone calls with her best friend, who once again managed to break someone’s heart and the stereotypical life of an editor of female magazine Balanced Woman. Nothing special but only until Oliver appears. For Laura, Oliver appears to be “divine”, for her mother however, Oliver is an aging loser she never wish to meet in her life.

A theatrical adaptation of Michal Viewegh’s bestseller, which is not only about everyday troubles and love experiences, which always look somehow better on cinema screens and in books than in our lives. In books we are impressed by them and we laugh at them, in life we have to at least survive…

TV

Late Night Talk Show with Jan Kraus

Jan Kraus is an acclaimed Czech actor, publicist, director, playwright and presenter who’s humour and prompt questions are unmistakable.

Jan Kraus has acted in number of Czech films but has established himself mainly in the field of television talk shows, including Sauna; Next, please!; O.K. – Citizen Kraus and Overtime. Relax, please! became the most popular talk show of all times in Czech Republic and has found its equivalent in Slovakia under the title Without any worries, please!.This show has been awarded with the Audience Award in the viewer poll TýTý for the Best Program of the year as well as with the Elsa Television Award. Until 2009, he also acted as the Chairman of the Czech Film and Television Association (FITES).

His current show Late Night Talk Show with Jan Kraus is always sold out and celebrates great and growing audience success each year. Once in a while, the show also travels to its audiences abroad, for example to London and New York, to allow Czech citizens living outside of Czech Republic to attend the show too. Jan Kraus welcomes guests not only of Czech or Slovak origin living abroad (the goalkeeper Petr Čech, LA Kings ice hockey player Marián Gáborík, top model Pavlína Pořízková) but also of native origin (Sir Alan Parker, Simon Mawer).

From 18.12 2023 will filming of the Late Night Talk Show with Jan Kraus move to the premises of Theater Bez zábradlí – Jungmannova 36/31 110 00 Prague 1. Tickets on sale now.

For more info visit the website: www.showjanakrause.cz