Alois Vachek

A manifesto of sorts for the Czech New Wave, this five-part anthology shows off the breadth of expression and the versatility of the movement’s directors. Based on stories by the legendary writer Bohumil Hrabal, the shorts range from the surreally chilling to the caustically observant to the casually romantic, but all have a cutting, wily view of the world.

At a village railway station in occupied Czechoslovakia, a bumbling dispatcher’s apprentice longs to liberate himself from his virginity. Oblivious to the war and the resistance that surrounds him, this young man embarks on a journey of sexual awakening and self-discovery, encountering a universe of frustration, eroticism, and adventure within his sleepy backwater depot.

Middle-aged Antonin and his friends, the major, now retired, and the canon, are in the river, swimming and philosophizing. Then it starts to rain. It just seems to be that sort of summer. Antonin runs the swimming bath with his portly wife Katherine... A man appears with his horse-drawn caravan. He lays a striped pole across the river and walks over. With a handstand and a magic trick, Ernie the Conjuror invites everyone to that evening's performance... Ernie is a tightrope walker of only modest skill, but with a slim and beautiful assistant, Anna. Antonin speaks to her. The two spend the night in the change room by the river, Antonin massaging her feet all night long. Katherine decides to move into the caravan with Ernie. But now the major and even the canon sense Anna's attractiveness...

Dveře

Hodina pravdy

Three short stories ("Zelenáči 1945", "Silvestr 1948" and "Zimní vítr 1951") about members of the SNB units guarding the Šumava border in the post-war years. Ivo Toman had artistic supervision over the debutants. The theme of the third short story was made in 1959 for the film "Entry Forbidden" by František Vláčil, who was also starting at the time.

The Lavicka's, a Czech family from the city, rents a house in the country with the option to buy. However, old Mr Komarek seems reluctant to sell the house as they agreed.

Jak se zbavit Helenky

When he returns to Prague from a stint in the Army, Lada does not seem to fit in anywhere, and he cannot get the hang of the system of deliberately underperforming on the job. His girlfriend tries to keep him in the city with a variety of stratagems, but he eventually takes a job as a truck driver on a dam-building project. He uses the truck to visit his girl on weekends. Ingenuous, he is unaware that the truck is being used for black-market smuggling, and that his girlfriend two-times on him when he cannot arrange to leave on time for his weekend.

Taxi driver Koukal (Miroslav Machácek) is stopped by the police for a routine traffic check. In the boot of his car the police find the body of a naked man. Koukal is arrested even though he claims he knows nothing about it. The case is assigned to Major Mlynár (Milan Sandhaus). The police identify the corpse as that of an Austrian citizen called Mitrik. Koukal has been regularly driving people interested in gambling to a secret gaming den. The police are put onto the gambling den by another taxi driver, who admits that he drove Mitrik there. Mlynár and officer cadet Pecka (Ivan Vyskocil) feign interest in gambling and visit the gaming den incognito.

A comedy about two bumbling policemen investigating an alleged rape in a small Czech town. One of the alleged rapists is supposed to get married the day he's locked up.

Návraty

It is the 1920's. The good-looking hostess Věra demonstrates household robots to visitors of the Futurum exhibition. Young inventor Petr comes to her rescue when she tries to flee from two men wanting to take her away. Věra confesses that she has fled from home because her father, a factory owner, wanted to profitably marry her off. Petr is fascinated by the emancipated woman and shows her round his laboratory, where he plans to create a robot of his own - but one that would be far more advanced. Věra cuts herself on a broken test-tube and a drop of her blood gets in the solution. In the morning, they are taken aback to see Věra's double. This lucky chance has helped Petr create an artificial being, Miss Golem. She has a single motive for her actions: to take care of Věra and allow her to do only what is good for her.

In post-WWII Communist Czechoslovakia, several characters considered bourgeois are sentenced to work in a junkyard for rehabilitation. Among them is a young man who pines for a female convict.

A black comedy set in a Prague cabaret.

Profesoři za školou

In the 1600s, an overzealous clergy hauls innocent women in front of tribunals, forces them to confess to imaginary witchery, and engages in brutal torture and persecution of their subjects.

Returning home to Prague, the magician Pasparte, an owner of a circus caravan, meets his dying colleague who entrusts his beautiful daughter Aloisie to his care. In Prague they all take up their lodgings at the house At Blue Fish in which they intend to arrange the programs. The firm is owned by widow Evzenie with whom Pasparte shares flat and bed. Evzenie is jealous of Aloisie therefore Pasparte sends Aloisie as a housewife to the single man Jakub Kolenatý who earns his living by photographing and wants to record the revived pictures of Prague. Pasparte wants to found in Prague the first permanent Czech movie theatre in which there would be projected also the original Czech films.

Three short story omnibus. The main hero and connecting link is Lieutenant Boruvka, created by Lubomír Lipsky. He deals with the murder case between climbers, the death of the dancer in the music theater and the strange disappearance of the mathematics professor.

Lemuel Gulliver (Lubomír Kostelka) has had a car accident and continues his journey across the unknown countryside on foot. On the road he finds a dead rabbit dressed like a man and takes a watch from its waistcoat breast pocket. The half-ruined house that he enters reminds Lemuel of his childhood and brings up a painful memory of a dearly loved girl Markéta who was drowned years ago. Gulliver finds himself in Balnibarbi, a country where he doesn't understand the laws and habits and so continually offends against public decency. It is a day when people are ordered to keep their mouths shut and they force their visitor to follow suit. He faces harsh interrogation and finds it difficult to explain that he is not the rabbit Oscar whose watch has been found in his possession.

The heroes of this absurd comedy, full of confusion and humor are Dzharda Zemanek and Frantisek Liska.

The life of the famous French writer Alexander Dumas the Elder. Screenwriter Jaroslav Dietl did not hide his admiration for this literary giant, and in addition to the screenplay he also wrote a three-part TV play about Dumas (starring Vladimír Menšík). In Kachyn's film, Dumas played the father and son of the Štěpánková brothers, and it was a very difficult and difficult task for these young actors.

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