Czechoslovakian Movies

Surreal dream-like tale that combines several themes into one fantastical world.

Towards the end of 1942 a young prisoner Maruska awaits in her cell in prison in Breslau (after war Polish Wroclaw) her execution. After death sentence it was ninety nine days of grace of life that were granted to prisoners by the Nazis, a period during which the prisoners were put to work. Maruska paints the eyes of the plaster tin soldiers by a thin brush and thus she takes the opportunity to put down secretly the fragments of her memories, thoughts and expectations. She hopes she will manage to smuggle these "scraps", as she calls them, to her close friends and family. In retrospect there are returning the girl's experiences.

In the 1950's, Ludvik Jahn was expelled from the Communist Party and the University by his fellow students, because of a politically incorrect note he sent to his girlfriend. Fifteen years later, he tries to get his revenge by seducing Helena, the wife of one of his accusers.

Three adolescent war orphans seclude themselves in an anarchic and playful existence of denial and juvenile joy.

Psychological study of a woman who chooses solitude as an escape from the duplicity and emotional barrenness of the men around her.

An evocation of the childhood memories of Bohumil Hrabal in his provincial town of Nymburk, dominated by the local brewery.

Straight shooting Lemonade Joe cleans up Stetson City, in this musical parody of early Westerns, after shooting the pants off villain Old Pistol. Joe's endorsement of Kolaloka lemonade as the refresher that assures deadly aim, convinces the Arizona sin-town to abstain from alcohol. But Trigger Whiskey maker Duke Badman's brother the devious gunslinger Hogofogo, comes to save his sibling's saloon from Joe's allies, father and daughter temperance revivalists, the Goodmans. Based on famous Czech parody novel from the 1940s and its various stage adaptations.

"What if someone had an absurd dream and the visions ran out in the street?" a scientist asks Rose, a researcher who discovers a way to engender beneficial dreams (to produce contented, productive workers). There's a problem: after an injection of her elixir, dream elements become real. Rose learns this after dosing her husband Henry to stop his dreaming about Jessie, a curvaceous comic-book heroine who has anti-gravitational gloves he needs to study so he can solve a problem at the factory where he's chief engineer: Henry wakes up with Jessie asleep next to him pursued by a cowboy and a super hero. Jealousy consumes Rose. All this plus satire aimed at the Czechoslovak state.

The young married couple - photographer Marie (Marta Vancurová) and civil engineering student Petr (Vlastimil Harapes) - live in a cozy attic flat with their four-year-old daughter Maruska. Petr sometimes goes out for a beer with other students and one night brings a couple of them - hungry and loud - back home with him in early morning hours, much to Marie's discontent. But the two young people have a strong and loving relationship and when Maruska suddenly falls ill they are very distressed.

A sincere provincial young man, Frantisek Koudelka (Ludek Sobota) leaves to work in Prague. For the trip he buys a computer made horoscope with biorhythms charts, marked according to his date of birth, there are trappy, precarious, unsuccessful and even critical days and few successful days. The clumsy luckless person Frantisek has finally a guidance for his life.

An apprentice train dispatcher looks for love while aiding his colleagues in their resistance against the Nazis.

A carpenter in the Fascist Slovak State is appointed "Aryan controller" of a Jewish widow's store.

A volunteer fire department throws a party for their former boss with the whole town invited, but nothing goes as planned.

The time is 1945-46. 10 year old Eda and his friend Tonda live in a small village outside Prague. In school, their class is so wild and indisciplined that their teacher quits and is replaced by the militant Igor Hnidzo. He is very strict - but also very just. His weakness is his interest in young women.

Various scenes in the life of a tight-knit community in Czech village exploring the human spirit in the backdrop of the post-war political changes they experience.

It is 5 May 1945 and the uprising against the hated German occupiers has broken out in Prague. The Czech guards open the gate of the Pankrác prison to allow the prisoners to escape en masse. Many of them are shot dead by the German guards but young Ruda (Jaromír Hanzlík) manages to run away. He is taken care of by one of the Prague fighters, concierge Kytka. Kytka hides him in the flat of the house's owner where only the young maid Karla (Jana Brejchová) is left, ordering her to take care of Ruda.

Although the emancipated editor of a women's magazine preaches that grandparents in particular should not be abused by their adult children, she accepts without scruples the fact that her mother, still a sprightly pensioner, works in her household as a jack-of-all-trades, without receiving not only any pay but also no recognition. However, the grandmother learns from an article written by her daughter - and rebels.

After coming home from a Party gathering one night, a Czech official becomes convinced that he is about to be the subject of a political purge and tries to do damage control, while also dealing with his turbulent marriage.

The year is 2163. Starship Ikarie XB 1 embarks on a long journey across the universe to search for life on the planets of Alpha Centauri.

When a comet passes the earth very closely, it pulls a small part of North Africa with it. Carried along is a bunch of people. Among them Angelika, who just escaped from a ruthless weapon dealer's ship, and her two brothers, who are searching her. Then there's a group of natives, who plan a rebellion against the French colonists. All these conflicts become secondary when the people finally realize that they are doomed to live together on an alien planet. However this time of peace and world-happiness won't last for long...

After an accidental explosion in the lab, its inventor slips in and out of dream-like hallucinations, realizing that he had given the formula to one of his colleagues, who he tries to stop before it is too late.

Set in Central Europe during World War II, a demented cremator believes cremation relieves earthly suffering and sets out to save the world.

When King Pravoslav's favorite daughter tells him that she loves him more than salt, he's furious since he considers salt to be worthless. Her fiance the Salt Prince makes all the salt disappear to teach Pravoslav a lesson.

Jakub, a dreamer and budding magician, juggles between parcels and services rendered to the villagers. His eyes cross that of the beautiful gypsy Jolanka. Together, they will try to live a first and big love, despite the pressure of their respective communities.