Valerie Kaplanová

Vítězný lid

A fairy-tale about an old lady who takes care of snow and Jakub who does not fear death. It reflects the idea of people's longing for happiness, love and understanding, their effort to overcome troubles and win over death. It criticizes greed and evil desires.

Set in Prague during the years leading up to World War II, this family saga tells the story of a cobbler named Vincenc Bursik (Vladimir Mensik), who uproots his clan from the country to the city, only to suffer the loss of his wife and the failure of his shoe business within months. When his daughter moves away to go live with a wealthy businessman as his mistress, Vincenc is left to take care of his two sons, who spend their days in a secret garden vying for the affections of a teenage girl.

After arriving at the mysterious castle, the university professor begins to encounter a sequence of mysterious events, to which he reacts with his rational thinking and tries to explain them logically.

A commemorative and essayistic meditative piece on the Prague quarter Libeň during the 1950s.

Young script-writer Frantisek (Petr Cepek) is hired to write a film script based on the successful novel Looking Back. He meets with the novel's female author, a University professor and writer named Olga Machová (Jirina Trebická), approximately ten-years-older than him. In the beginning, they do not understand each other at all. Frantisek is a skeptic experiencing a moral crisis, unsatisfied with both his work and his private life - he lives separated from his wife and has no deeper feelings for his numerous lovers. He even gets drunk from time to time and breaks the public peace. Olga is lonesome, too, but considers her life fulfilled.

Svědectví mrtvých očí

The local farmers' cooperative organized a trip to Italy, in which the Škopkovci took part. They went there at the invitation of the Italian agricultural cooperative, whose employees are going to visit Hoštice in return. In addition to the sights, the goal of the tour was also an excursion to a modern Italian cowshed. After returning home, Hoštice and its inhabitants are waiting for a "great approach to Europe" - they plan to improve the neglected village by building a nudist beach. However, as it usually happens, the Italian delegation appears at the least convenient moment. Strangely enough, they like the cooperative's neglected economy so much that they propose to preserve it as an open-air museum...

This film, chronicling the last days of Czech resistance fighter Maruska Kuderikova (played by Magda Vasaryova), is based on her diaries. Though she was tortured and eventually executed by the Nazis, her diaries indicate that she was optimistic for the humanity of her captors and did not by any means hate them. Told with simple dignity, this film makes clear why Maruska became a national hero.

The story begins in 1984 in Prague, Czechoslovakia, few years before the end of Communist era. The band Pražský výběr (Prague's selection) has just received the news thier 5-year ban has expired and they are alowed to perform once again. This half fantasy half document about the band would draw the atmosphere of middle european late Communist era and the eufory of it's end.

At the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries Boleslav's kingdom fell apart in the fratricidal war between the Přemyslovci and the other clans the main profiteer of this being the German emperor. At that time it seemed as if the Czech state and the lineage of its princes was awaiting its end..." It is with these words that the tale of this film begins, whose narrative is based upon the the play by František Hrubín of the same name.

Piloti

The Treasure of Count Chamaré

Šmankote, babičko, čaruj!

Almost King

A police inspector and inexperienced trainee search for a mysteriously disappeared manufacturer of ointments for hair growth.

The story of a music academy student Zdenek, who meets a charming girl, and without realizing also gets a son with her. Dealing with such a situation is not easy, especially when one day the child's mother disappears. Twenty year old Zdenek faces a serious decision. Although he is aware that a child may endanger his studies and perhaps even future career, he refuses to entrust him to the care of the state institution.

A parody of Frankensteinian stories. It is a story of a little boy, an orphan who arrives at the Castle of Count Frankenstein - a world inhabited by mysterious and sometimes a bit ridiculous scary creatures. Although each one of them is different, they all share one thing: they feel lonely and they are desperate for a little love and affection.

In WWII, Czechoslovakia split into the Slovak State and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Former pilot Viktor Lesa works for the Slovak Railway Mail and often comes to the border town of Ludendorf, the former Czech town of Bfeclav. In order to impress a young female colleague, he redirects an important package. The Gestapo shows up in the town and Lesa together with a Jewish clerk, Tichacek, have to run for their lives . They ride a cargo train to Slovakia and they decide to escape to Hungary by crossing the Danube.

A coming of age drama about a young boy Jirka who lives in Prague.

After her mother had passed, Darinka lives with her grandma. In her fantasy she lives her own version of Sleeping Beauty. Her musical talent helps her to cope with illness and fulfill her dreams.

Czechoslovak comedy film directed by Ladislav Smoljak, about the fictional national hero Jára Cimrman (universal genius, inventor, sportsman, criminalist, poet, writer and philosopher).

Škaredá dědina

Helimadoe

During WWII a youth deserts his country's army after a combat experience, but not before wounding his commanding officer with a knife in order to escape. The young man, now very emotionally distraught, dresses in women's clothes and eventually joins a passing gypsy caravan, who think him a young girl... as well as a kind of seer, or 'rawney'. In time, however, he regains some composure and becomes attracted to one of the gypsy girls, which only leads to problems within the gypsy band, especially when the wounded commanding officer finds him.

Lukáš, Alžbetka's son, takes off into the world looking for happiness and love. His godmother, the celestial Lady Winter, keeps an eye on him. He arrives late in the fairy-tale land that she leads him to. Fear reigns where once cakes grew on trees. The miraculous ram has disappeared and the royal town is cursed. Lukáš has to decide what is closer to his heart: a fortune or love?

This downbeat, grim drama about three brothers who are reunited at their mother's funeral is actually visually as dark as its story, making it difficult at times to clearly distinguish a scene. These brothers are not particularly exceptional as people go, but at least they have branched out into separate vocations in their lives. One brother is a doctor, another is a criminal, and the third is a bus driver. Like others in Europe, they suffered through World War II, yet no matter what their backgrounds and experiences, their interpersonal relationships are not exactly gripping drama.

Tchán

A dark fable set in an early 1950s Czech village, a time of Soviet-style socialism which saw the implementation of collectivized agriculture and the mass closure of monasteries and convents.

For a second time this film leads us to the village in South Bohemia. We meet again Konopnik family and Skopek family. Venca Konopnik is marrying Blazena Skopek but there is another woman Milada who is very jealous and she is spreading gossips about Venca Konopnik. Those gossips are so powerful that they lead to big fights between Konopnik and Skopek families. You will also see what a progress on milk-yielding-cows-project has been made.

Vekslák aneb Staré zlaté časy

Sonya is the heiress to the riches of a Czech noble family—the Hajns. Petr, a social climber marries her, ignoring some shady goings-on—in particular, an insane uncle who prowls the mansion believing himself invisible, a peccadillo the family indulges. The uncle’s stalking every corner of the house, popping out of cupboards and out from behind curtains slowly takes its toll on the young bride.

Kouzelné dobrodružství

When a young journalist dies in violent circumstances, her brother soon learns, by way of the mysterious Stefan Crosscoe, that his sister has succumbed to the werewolf curse.

The castle custodian Král is moving to a new place of work with his wife, son Radek and a five - years old daughter Terezka. Radek takes his cat Líza with him. A fully loaded truck moves through the country which is in spring blossoms, gradually changing into a snow-covered land. Children's imagination creates from real experiences magic stories - a fairy-tale grandpa takes them to a new castle, the children fear a black-horse rider who - as the grandpa and the cleaning lady assert she hates cats.

Pionýr

Raději dříve

The deportation of 4000 Jews from Budapest to Auschwitz in July 1944, as told by George Tabori, and how the narrator’s mother escaped it, owing to coincidence, courage and some help from where you’d least expect it.

October 1918: After returning to the civil life, the young Doctor Giorgino Volli searches for a group of children, which he had been the care-taker of before the first world war began. However, soon the searching becomes a part of hide-and-seek with death. Giorgino finds a village bordered with a treacherous marsh and rumours of wolves. There he also meets the mysterious Catherine....

Není sirotek jako sirotek

Sedm hladových

Houpačka

This international co-production, shot at Barrandov Studios with international cast including Czech actors is an attempt to create a sci-fi fantasy in the tradition of Star Wars and Star Trek. Sometime in the distant future, several earthlings turn up on a strange planet ruled over by a despotic ruler with magic powers. A young earth-man initiates a successful uprising.

A family film from two legends of Czech children film, Vera Plívová-Simková and Drahomíra Králová. The starting point for the action is a village family with two dogs: their Dalmatians, bearing the legendary names of the movie's title, experience dreamlike visions of life in a "dog kingdom".

Malostranské humoresky

Set over a two-decade period in a tiny Central European village, this drama not only chronicles a couple's tragic star-crossed love, it also serves as a metaphor for the tragedy of lost traditions. After opening in the snowy wilds as two people spectacularly die, the story jumps back 20 years as young Verona prepares to marry. Unfortunately, voracious wolves descend upon the ceremony and all but Verona and her courageous 10-year-old brother-in-law Goran, who saves her, perish. That day, Verona gives birth to Veronika and promptly betroths her daughter to the heroic Goran. A decade passes and on Veronika's 10th birthday, her engagement to Goran is formally announced at a big party. Festivities halt when a troupe of female circus performers and their sly employer Madina show up. Veronika soon finds herself more interested in Madina's young son Michal than she is in the adult Goran. Meanwhile, the worldly Madina attempts to adjust to life in an old-fashioned village.

The film adaptation of the novel of the same by Michal Viewegh. The hero of the novel is a primary school teacher with a successful writing career ahead of him who accepts well-paid employment from an entrepreneur who entrusts him with the task of making his unusual daughter "see sense".

The pragmatic, reserved and refined Maigret investigates murders in his singular unhurried manner and inevitably discovers the truth.

Moje kone vrané

Thirty Cases of Major Zeman is a Czechoslovak action-drama television show intended as a political propaganda to support the official attitude of the communist party. The series were filmed in the 1970s. Each episode encompasses one year, and investigations are stylized to that year. Most are inspired by real cases. The series follows the life of police investigator Jan Zeman during his career from 1945 to 1975.

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