
Directing
Věra Plívová-Šimková
Born 1934-05-29 · Lomnice nad Popelkou, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]
Věra Plívová-Šimková ( May 29, 1934 Lomnice nad Popelkou – October 13 , 2024 Semily ) was a Czech film director, known especially for her films about children and for children. She was born in Lomnica pod Popelka to a volunteer family. Her mother Vlasta Plívová (née Kaplanová) worked in the Svornost theater association in Lomnica, her father František was a teacher at a weaving school. When she was three years old, her father died. Her siblings were also involved in art, sister Břetislava Pospíšilová-Plívová was a painter, Vlasta Zděnovcová-Plívová was a Hispanist and translator. After passing the matriculation exam at Lepař's high school in Jičín , where she and her family moved because of her mother's work, she decided to study directing at FAMU. After completing her studies (1952–1957) under the guidance of Bořivoj Zeman, she began assisting directors Karl Kachyňa ( Král Šumava ) and Vojtěch Jasný ( Desire ) or Václav Vorlíček ( The Case of the Lupínek ) at Barrand. After finishing her film career, she lived in Chuchelno near Semil. Her husband was the glassmaker Tomáš Šimek , who died in 1998. She died in Semily on 13 October 2024 at the age of 90.
Acting credits
The 50th anniversary of the Barrandov studios was celebrated with a spectacular show: many directors and other important people gathered in the expensive decorations of the Variety Theatre auditorium (built for the Circus Humberto series). They smiled and showed well-deserved relaxation after a job well done in managing socialist cinema. Vladimir Sís interspersed this with excerpts from films, mainly his own and also a little of others who had worked on the "Hill of Dreams".
Barrandovské nokturno aneb Jak film tančil a zpíval
1985
No synopsis available yet.
Věra Plívová-Šimková
2023
In this 1999 documentary, which took three years to shoot, director Jan Mudra reveals Hapka's obsession with creativity, his incredible energy, and his abundance of ideas. He recalls his family background, his studies at the acting conservatory, and his first roles in Czech films. Petr Hapka began his career as a composer in the 1960s. Even then, he began writing for Hana Hegerová, with whom, as he says, he entered into a musical marriage that continues to this day. In the film, his three main lyricists—Petr Rada, Zdeněk Rytíř, and Michal Horáček—recall their work with Hapka. Many viewers may be surprised to learn that Petr Hapka also composed the music for three famous plays by the Divadlo Za branou theater: Provaz o jednom konci (A Rope with One End), Zelený papoušek (The Green Parrot), and Hodina lásky (The Hour of Love), as recalled in the film by director Otomar Krejča. He also composed the music for several films.
Petr Hapka
2002
A boyish dispute over drums full of scared pigeons.
Hledám dům holubí
1986
Behind the camera
8.0Sixth-grade pupil Katka daydreams during a math class about being Snow White and being freed by a prince who looks very much like Dzery from the eighth grade. Katka, her girl friends Lenka and Martina, and her fellow-pupils Franta, Joska and freckled Vrabcák, have spent five years going to the same little one-class school in their home mountain village of Pastvina. Their kind teacher Smetácek was very understanding about their games and fantasies, but he didn't teach them much about arithmetic. They are now laughed at for their ignorance by the strict Bidlo, their new teacher at the near-by little town. As he does every year, Smetácek is preparing a theatre performance with the local children. Katka suggests the fairytale about Snow White
About Show-White
1972
8.0Sixth-grade pupil Katka daydreams during a math class about being Snow White and being freed by a prince who looks very much like Dzery from the eighth grade. Katka, her girl friends Lenka and Martina, and her fellow-pupils Franta, Joska and freckled Vrabcák, have spent five years going to the same little one-class school in their home mountain village of Pastvina. Their kind teacher Smetácek was very understanding about their games and fantasies, but he didn't teach them much about arithmetic. They are now laughed at for their ignorance by the strict Bidlo, their new teacher at the near-by little town. As he does every year, Smetácek is preparing a theatre performance with the local children. Katka suggests the fairytale about Snow White
About Show-White
1972
6.7Three friends - Tomás, Hubert and Jozka - are boys growing up in a little town. Tomás lives with his aunt Apolena and uncle Václav. Tomás is a boy with lots of ideas that often end up getting him into trouble not only with his teachers and aunt, but with the other inhabitants of the town as well. He has a crush on his schoolmate Blanka and for her sake he decides to try to get the prize for the best pupil in the school.
Boys Will Be Boys
1976
7.3Children from the village Bystrá are awaiting a nice and thrilling weekend. On Saturday they will play the championship football match with the nonresident boys from the village Skuhrov, on Sunday there will be the funfair with merry-go-round, swings and stalls with dainties. The members of the family of the merry-go-round man are brother and sister Janek and Zaneta Mareks whom the children have known since the last year. At that time Zaneta made friends with girls and Janek, an excellent football player, has been a welcome support of the football club.
The Fair Is Here
1974
7.3Children from the village Bystrá are awaiting a nice and thrilling weekend. On Saturday they will play the championship football match with the nonresident boys from the village Skuhrov, on Sunday there will be the funfair with merry-go-round, swings and stalls with dainties. The members of the family of the merry-go-round man are brother and sister Janek and Zaneta Mareks whom the children have known since the last year. At that time Zaneta made friends with girls and Janek, an excellent football player, has been a welcome support of the football club.
The Fair Is Here
1974
7.3It is the summer holiday and little Mísa Horák has taken a few animals from the school's so-called "Corner of Living Nature" home to care for. But when he brings home two Angora rabbits, a starling, a little monkey, a tortoise and a small crocodile, his parents order him to take them away. He is helped by Káta, who offers to place the animals in the child's room of her family's apartment. Mísa leaves for her friend where the animals will hopefully be able to stay. Káta goes shopping. In the meantime, Káta's younger sister Minka wakes up and begins to play with the animals, who gradually run off in disarray.
Katya and the Crocodile
1966
7.3It is the summer holiday and little Mísa Horák has taken a few animals from the school's so-called "Corner of Living Nature" home to care for. But when he brings home two Angora rabbits, a starling, a little monkey, a tortoise and a small crocodile, his parents order him to take them away. He is helped by Káta, who offers to place the animals in the child's room of her family's apartment. Mísa leaves for her friend where the animals will hopefully be able to stay. Káta goes shopping. In the meantime, Káta's younger sister Minka wakes up and begins to play with the animals, who gradually run off in disarray.
Katya and the Crocodile
1966
8.0The director of films for kids called Bonzurka together with her loyal assistants Drahuska and Honza are looking for the actors for a new movie "The Knee". Children for this movie should not be afraid and shy and they must have talent for acting. Thus the scouting is quite difficult. The most difficult is to find an actress for a main character who lost her hair after a serious illness and now has to spent the whole holiday in the countryside with a bald head resembling a knee. Although the makeup artist does his best an artificial baldness does not solve anything. From the selected little girls only the self-assertive Rosemary has the guts to let her long hair to be cut and shave off her head.
A Major Role for Rosmaryna
1978
8.0The director of films for kids called Bonzurka together with her loyal assistants Drahuska and Honza are looking for the actors for a new movie "The Knee". Children for this movie should not be afraid and shy and they must have talent for acting. Thus the scouting is quite difficult. The most difficult is to find an actress for a main character who lost her hair after a serious illness and now has to spent the whole holiday in the countryside with a bald head resembling a knee. Although the makeup artist does his best an artificial baldness does not solve anything. From the selected little girls only the self-assertive Rosemary has the guts to let her long hair to be cut and shave off her head.
A Major Role for Rosmaryna
1978
7.5The main character of the story, which is a sensitive probe into the soul of a little girl, is five-year-old Kačka Znamínková, who lives with her parents in a picturesque village in the foothills. And because she has a very vivid imagination, she becomes not only a princess with a golden star on her forehead, but also a princess on a pea or a crocodile hunter. Together with her parents, she is expecting a new sibling to be born any day, but she will only be happy if it is a little sister. She doesn't even want to hear about a little brother. But in the end, instead of the expected little sister, she gets two brothers, so...
Nefňukej, veverko!
1988
7.5The main character of the story, which is a sensitive probe into the soul of a little girl, is five-year-old Kačka Znamínková, who lives with her parents in a picturesque village in the foothills. And because she has a very vivid imagination, she becomes not only a princess with a golden star on her forehead, but also a princess on a pea or a crocodile hunter. Together with her parents, she is expecting a new sibling to be born any day, but she will only be happy if it is a little sister. She doesn't even want to hear about a little brother. But in the end, instead of the expected little sister, she gets two brothers, so...
Nefňukej, veverko!
1988
6.2Tomás lives in a very small Czech town and is a nature lover and a birdwatcher. He struggles to keep the forests he loves clean and constantly fights his "archenemy" whose sister and Tomás's classmate is secretly in love with him.
Brontosaurus
1980
6.2Tomás lives in a very small Czech town and is a nature lover and a birdwatcher. He struggles to keep the forests he loves clean and constantly fights his "archenemy" whose sister and Tomás's classmate is secretly in love with him.
Brontosaurus
1980
4.8Matej and Jenda, two of the eight children of the poor Pelc family in the Giant Mountains, help in a glass works where the oldest brother Francek works. They hide into a tub not to be seen by supervisors checking on the ban of children labor. They miss the Epiphany carol (songs and treats door-to-door) and all neighbor village boys again on them in all the neighbor houses. On their way home they are passed by a fast moving big man with a large backpack. The boys send the customs officers, who are pursuing the strange man, to the opposite direction. The man then thanks them and rewards them the next day. Based on fairy-tales and legends the boys think the man is Krakonos (the giant living and ruling in the Giant Mountains).
The Krakonos and the Skiers
1981
9.0A girl in the dance class has a problem with a perceived handicap - glasses.
Chlapci zadejte se
1964
9.0A girl in the dance class has a problem with a perceived handicap - glasses.
Chlapci zadejte se
1964
6.3Roman Hlava grew up with his diplomat parents in Latin America where he had been home-schooled by his over doting mother. The over indulgence of affection and praise has given the boy an over confidence. This is quickly squashed by his new peers when the family returns to the Czech Republic. This leads to neurotic tics and the nickname Mrkácek the 'Blinker.' A stay at a children's camp provides new friends, acceptance, an appreciation of nature, a new outlook on life, and loss of the tics.
Blinker-Ciko
1983
6.3Roman Hlava grew up with his diplomat parents in Latin America where he had been home-schooled by his over doting mother. The over indulgence of affection and praise has given the boy an over confidence. This is quickly squashed by his new peers when the family returns to the Czech Republic. This leads to neurotic tics and the nickname Mrkácek the 'Blinker.' A stay at a children's camp provides new friends, acceptance, an appreciation of nature, a new outlook on life, and loss of the tics.
Blinker-Ciko
1983
8.5In the village cemetery, the funeral of a married couple - victims of a car crash - is ending. The relatives unscrupulously take away the facilities of the dead people's little cottage, totally ignorant of the fate of eight-year old Ruda, whom the childless couple took from a children's home and adopted. Fortunately, an elderly lonesome uncle named Tony remains in the empty cottage and decides to take care of the boy, nicknamed Münchie after Baron Münchhausen for his wild imagination.
Toni, You're Crazy
1969
8.5In the village cemetery, the funeral of a married couple - victims of a car crash - is ending. The relatives unscrupulously take away the facilities of the dead people's little cottage, totally ignorant of the fate of eight-year old Ruda, whom the childless couple took from a children's home and adopted. Fortunately, an elderly lonesome uncle named Tony remains in the empty cottage and decides to take care of the boy, nicknamed Münchie after Baron Münchhausen for his wild imagination.
Toni, You're Crazy
1969
7.0Sliding, skiing, snow forts, snowball fights, in short, winter is the right season for the children from the village under the Šibeničák hill to have fun. Their leader has always been Zrzek, the son of the local undertaker. But then Myšák, whose father had become the chairman of the agricultural cooperative, moved into the village, and he pulled all the boys to his side, especially because he could take the boys on the horses his father sometimes lent him. Proud Zrzek left the group rather than submit to Myshak. Only his friend Barbora remained faithful to him, helping him catch birds, especially the proverbial black raven.
Lišáci – Myšáci a Šibeničák
1970
7.0Sliding, skiing, snow forts, snowball fights, in short, winter is the right season for the children from the village under the Šibeničák hill to have fun. Their leader has always been Zrzek, the son of the local undertaker. But then Myšák, whose father had become the chairman of the agricultural cooperative, moved into the village, and he pulled all the boys to his side, especially because he could take the boys on the horses his father sometimes lent him. Proud Zrzek left the group rather than submit to Myshak. Only his friend Barbora remained faithful to him, helping him catch birds, especially the proverbial black raven.
Lišáci – Myšáci a Šibeničák
1970
A 17-year-old student unexpectedly gives up her newborn for adoption and must confront the emotional fallout, family tensions and societal shifts of the tumultuous post-revolution era as she seeks to understand her choices and find her own way in life.
Houpačka
1990
A 17-year-old student unexpectedly gives up her newborn for adoption and must confront the emotional fallout, family tensions and societal shifts of the tumultuous post-revolution era as she seeks to understand her choices and find her own way in life.
Houpačka
1990
