The Trip

Three separate short stories by Jan Drda from the collection The Dumb Barricade: The Dynamite Watchman, Hatred and Traces.

Four friends (a background actor, a documentarian, a homeless musician, and a virgin) descend into a life-awakening 24 hours that involve excess drinking, prostitutes, a sage-like lounge singer and psychedelic drugs.

Matys is an outsider who moved from Ukraine to Czechia with his sister in search of a better life. It turns out the situation there is not ideal either. A glimpse of hope comes when Matys manages to get a job in a cottage located in the heart of a splendid forest.

Adam, thirty-two, still lives with his overprotective mother. Their everyday life is filled with rituals of obedience and mutual dependence. Everything changes when one night Adam is accompanied by a man in a gray suit, visible only to him.

A wild genre mix between a boxer film, urban western, road movie and music video, set at end of the summer holidays in a drab neighborhood in the outskirts of Hamburg suburbia. Young boxing talent Mauser is preparing for a pivotal competition when his father kills his step-mother and flees. Trying to find his father, Mauser embarks on a journey through the world of music, psychedelia, violence, love and a biblical thunderstorm. And what is with the Native American? "Once upon a time in Indian country" is a story that radiates both, heat and poetry.

Unemployed and broke, Michael’s seemingly useless efforts to find employment lead him to discovering inner peace and the value of perseverance.

Dödlig Natt

An elderly Chinese immigrant woman strongly desires to return to her hometown in China.

Clementine’s room is her haven and her safe space, but as the night goes on and her mind challenges her further, she must face her insecurities and leave the cocoon she has created for herself.

Adaptation of a Kafka short story, believed lost for more than 60 years.

In pursuit of happiness, a young woman fantasises about killing her boyfriend

Luisa from Argentina and Fred from Germany are confronted with their social roles at their wedding. The German tradition of kidnapping the bride shakes the couple’s equality. There is no room for love in this role-play of marriage.

Ah Ma, a lonely elderly woman suffering from dementia longs for her family to be united again. But when her children stop visiting her, she wonders if her family has forgotten her.

Poutníci

A story about a young man who has an argument with his friend so chooses to take a walk to clear his deteriorating mind.

Playing hooky from school, Tony, a student/chorister at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, spends the afternoon at Central Park's Sailboat lake and retrieves a remote control device left behind by a pair of sailboat racers. Back in the schoolyard, Tony pretends that he has a car to go with the remote control. When another boy tries to take the control from him, it falls on the ground and a red remote-control sports car miraculously appears. The car "dances" to rap music and even brings Tony a can of soda. One day, a sinister-looking man with a briefcase steals the car and flees into the subway. Tony and his classmates pursue the thief to the Wall Street area and ask to inspect the briefcases of passing businessmen. Eluding the students, the crook hails a taxi and hurls the briefcase from the window. Next morning, Tony hears the sound of a sports car during a church service. Returning to its rightful owner, the magical car mysteriously reappears at the end of the processional.

A college student heads to the forest to exchange an item for a special item he desires. But once he arrives, the deal changes which leads to violence.

While staying at an isolated island resort, James and Em are enjoying a perfect vacation of pristine beaches, exceptional staff, and soaking up the sun. But guided by the seductive and mysterious Gabi, they venture outside the resort grounds and find themselves in a culture filled with violence, hedonism, and untold horror. A tragic accident leaves them facing a zero tolerance policy for crime: either you'll be executed, or, if you’re rich enough to afford it, you can watch yourself die instead.

What happens when a bartender on a mission to find her cheating boyfriend gets stuck driving a drunk high-schooler home? Trans Am, emergency room, strip club, showdown, vomit, sunrise. Yeah.

A man from communist Czechoslovakia unexpectedly meets his childhood love on a flight to Cuba. When they stop over in Canada, he has a plan… but can he trust her?