Mister Hrstka

Ústřední loutkové divadlo

Madrid, Spain, 1949. The Circo Americano arrives in the city. While the big top is pitched in a vacant lot, the troupe parades through the grand avenues: the band, a witty impersonator, the Balodys, acrobats, jugglers, acrobatic skaters, clowns and… Buffallo Bill.

Here's a strange one. First, a song on a blackboard: a Polish translation of “I love my little rooster” by American folk writer Almeda Riddle. Then, two men roll around trash bins and lift them to the garbage truck. They do it several times. A woman shouts in the distance. At the end, the picture stops, and the woman sings the song. An early short by Piotr Szulkin.

A 4-year-old girl cries, lost in the city. A Soviet soldier on a ferry takes her in and takes her to her home village.

Věděli si rady

6-18-67 is a short quasi-documentary film by George Lucas regarding the making of the Columbia film “Mackenna's Gold”. This non-story, non-character visual tone poem is made up of nature imagery, time-lapse photography, and the subtle sounds of the Arizona desert.

Připraveni

Stráž míru

Dárci života

Politická karikatura

A student work by Jiří Menzel, filmed during his second year at the FAMU film school. Views of old Prague and its tenement buildings, symbolizing the obsolete past, alternate with shots of construction sites for new prefabricated apartment buildings. In spite of certain unavoidable propagandistic overtones added by the director, it is notable as the beginning of his search for a “dramaturgy of colors.”

In Vancouver, British Columbia, two teenagers attempt to create a feature length documentary about their lives. The main character James (played by himself) becomes obsessed with the project and is pushed into a more introverted, lonely existence. His best friend Quinn (played by himself) sets out to help him, but is met with the real answer as to why James is keeping himself inside: the rejection of what he thinks is the love of his life. The two of them go their separate ways, with James going deeper into a depression he’s not sure he can escape from.

2012: Time For Change is a documentary feature that presents ways to transform our unsustainable society into a regenerative planetary culture. This can be achieved through a personal and global change of consciousness and the systemic implementation of ecological design.

A film poem. A minimalist reflection on whether inner states are transferable by the film medium. The aim of a Buddhist mindfulness meditation is to clear away thoughts wandering from the past to the present, to be mindfully aware of each present moment. Each unique NOW NOW NOW passing away just like single frames while the camera grab snatches off meters of expensive 35mm material.

In a series of juxtaposed images and sounds, Jaromil Jireš comments on the tragic premature death of thousands as well as their posterity due to the atomic bomb.

Battering, breading, frying – Berta has prepared thousands of schnitzels in her old cast-iron pan over the years. This 83-year-old landlady’s life on the family farm with adjoining guest house in the Upper Palatinate has been marked by constant hard work. A life that her granddaughters Monika and Hannah never wanted to lead. Now, the deeply indebted farm is on the brink of collapse. Despite having an academic background and contrary to her intentions, Monika, in her early thirties, decides to give up her modern life and save the family business. The two women join forces and give themselves a year to sort out the farm’s problems.

Four teenagers, everyday life, school, work and a week-long offline challenge. What do the lives of today's teenagers look like when they find themselves without an internet connection? In addition to disconnecting, they were to record their feelings and experiences in a video diary. Without the Internet, without music, without movies and series, and without any communication with the world around them, life can turn upside down.

A documentary about the crowd of people that commingle throughout the 3.5km of the Minhocão, an overpass in the central region of São Paulo, built during Brazil's military dictatorship.

Sonia Maletzová's documentary film portrait follows the legend of the Czechoslovak music scene, rock keyboardist Marian Varga (1947-2017), at the end of his life, when he was diagnosed with a terminal illness. It captures the great introvert and avid smoker during his last performances, when he slowly began to lose his breath.

The director, who has always been viewed as the black sheep in her family, sets out to the Belarusian town of Vitebsk to talk with her parents about previous grievances and topics that were considered taboo. The effort to find a common language, which runs into stormy emotions and the inability to voice honest opinions, is captured through both personal moments and detailed shots of the protagonists’ faces.