Oldřich Velen

H. Ch. Andersen's story was the basis for the narrative film 'Of John and the Wonderful Friend', in which the 'magic wand' plays an important plot-forming role. With its help, Jan overcomes the magician Magnus and rescues the princess Agnes.

In 1897, in a castle near the town of Werewolfville in the Carpithians, a slightly deranged Professor Orfanik experiments with his new inventions which include, even at this early date, television and a film camera. He is also an obsessed opera fan, keeps the body of his favorite diva preserved in a crypt in the castle. In order to keep away nosy visitors, the baron's mad-scientist assistant invents all sorts of spooky phenomena in order to give the castle a creepy reputation.

Brave sons of the king, twin brothers Jaroslav and Jaromír love and help each other. It was they and another brother - Jindrich, who once saw the portrait of Princess of Diamond Mountains, fell in love and went on her quest.

For the Novák and Bartáček families, money is king, and they'll do just about anything to get it. While René Novák pitches his parents a lucrative scheme to swindle as many people with the last name Novák in the country as possible, the Bartáček clan decides to pretend to be much poorer than they really are in order to siphon some dollars from an American relative. And it doesn't take long before these separate scams start to intertwine.

A story about an everyday life of an inflectional department of Prague hospital.

In this fairy-tale comedy, a clumsy second-rate wizard, Rumburak, gets stuck in the world of humans. He has forgotten the spell that allows him to return to his home fairyland. His only joy is watching the figure skater Helen, whom he would like to woo. His hopes of returning to fairyland dawn when he discovers a computer in a research institute that could generate the lost spell.

In one royal forest, where coal miner Patočka lives and works, the friendly dragon Mrak settles down. The king's lackeys come across him while hunting and, terrified, go to sell the news to the king. He is currently organizing his daughter Viola's birthday party. The hunters describe the dragon in terrifying colors, and so the king concludes that the dragon will, according to tradition, want the king's daughter. So he announces a reward for killing the dragon, but no one wants to fight him. The only one who applies is the princess's favorite, the lutenist Marian, but the king does not like him, so he throws him out. Her brother Jan wants to save the princess, but the king doesn't want to allow it...

The hard-working head of the farm machinery maintenance crew, Lawrence, is always in control. He knows how to keep everyone around him busy, and he loves to meddle in the affairs of other members of his large family. Above all, he has high hopes for his promising daughter Štěpánka. He wants her to become a college student. But everything gets complicated when the girl falls in love with Tomas from the neighbouring village. One of Vavřince's latest excesses is to prepare a wedding that he doesn't know is no longer necessary.

The film tells the exciting life of the great Czech composer Leos Janácek (1854-1928), also known by the thick silver hair that crowned his head and his strong character, which could overcome the adversities of fate.

​Two aliens stir up trouble on Earth in order to study humans. Misunderstandings ensue.

In the Czech film comedy from 1988, you can see for yourself that the war was not easy, but otherwise it was great fun. Sergeant Kouba serving with the paratroopers has a soft spot for women. His superior does not like him. However, during a military exercise on the way to the barracks, Kouba shows his true character when he saves the life of a little boy, convicts a thief and finds a lifelong partner in the commander's sister.

Based on the only extensive prose work by the surrealist painter Josef Capek, Shades of Fern most resembles the philosophical fairy tales and fables of Josef’s older brother, the legendary Czech novelist and playwright Karel Capek. Two young poachers, more boys than men, kill a gamekeeper when they are caught illegally hunting. Panicked, they retreat into a forest that grows steadily more forbidding and deadly as their fear for the future—and guilt over their action—mounts. Loosely based on hundreds of oral folk tales and legends that haunt the woods of Czechoslovakia, Vlácil’s contemporary updating artistically underscores the relationship between man and nature, crime and punishment, isolation and society, and guilt and memory.

The two heroes of the film's story - the decent but dry engineer Zárub and the marriage swindler Majer - are granted this wish by the mysterious forces of the moon. The two men change their appearance, which, however, contrasts sharply with their unchanged characters and voices. The incomprehensible swap naturally becomes the source of many comic plots and situations.

The trenches of World War I provide for a captivating backdrop to the drama of Corporal Hoferik. In his devotion to the Habsburg Monarchy, he fanatically carries out his military orders, but he ultimately suffers the Empire's disfavor.

A twelve-year-old is looking for his biological parents after discovering the fact that he was adopted.

A pair of criminals, an escaped prisoner and a young thief, are about to make a joint, obviously illegal, escape across the border. They escape for a long time, even managing to infiltrate Polish territory. They head for the coast, from where they intend to transport themselves to Sweden. But the Polish security authorities are vigilant.

No synopsis available yet.

A directors autobiography about his debut during the rise of socialism.

The former reputed lover and bon vivant Petr Vok from Rožmberk was widowed at the age of sixty-three. The loss of his much younger wife is hard to bear and it seems that nothing in his life will please him anymore. His loyal friends and servants do everything possible and impossible to cheer him up, but sometimes interesting situations arise, such as when they get him a guaranteed real mermaid. Will anyone be able to cure the master of his lethargy?

During the First World War, the crooks Scholef and Krumka sell weapons on the black market. After the collapse of the monarchy they try their hand at speculation on a grand scale.

The unlucky cultural officer of a spa facility gets involved in compromising situations against his will - and he was originally only after a recommendation to study at an art school.

At long last, King Dalimil and Queen Eliška have produced an heir, Princess Růženka. Consumed with envy, Eliška’s sister Melánie casts a curse: On the day Růženka turns seventeen, she will prick her finger and fall into a deep sleep together with the entire kingdom.

After a soldier cuts off the arm of king's cousin, king decides to deactivate the army. Of course, generals don't like it at all and they try to kill the king. The assassin should be artificial body in the shape of actress Evelina Keleti and with brain of psychotic serial killer Fany Stubová. They also manage to kill king's astrologer Stuart Hampl, who warns the king. Accidentally, Hampl's brain is implanted into assassin's body, actress Keleti is killed and chaos begins.

A fifteen years old Jana escapes summer camp wearing nothing but bikini...

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

Set in the early 1930s, a young man finds a job as a dishwasher in a hotel and quickly works his way up the ladder. Loosely based on the novel by Henryk Worcell.

Two criminal gangs are ruthlessly fighting for a 1-million dollar check that, purely by chance, got into the flat of shy high school teacher George Camel. As the number of victims sharply increases, Camel is mistakenly regarded as a mass murderer and cunningly uses his horrifying reputation to get the respect and heart of his beloved Sabrina, a journalist from a local newspaper. But this game turns out to be risky and in the end, both gangs don't hesitate to seize the check at all costs, including an improvised operation

To Moscow have arrived the participants of the international conference of the zoophilologists and also the international jury which is to elect for the world festival the best performance of the program of Moscow circus. Mrs Whistler (Iva Janzurová), British associate professor, makes her understood with the animals in their language but the Czech professor Ruzicka (Jirí Sovák), though he is capable of using the animals language, prefers teaching the animals the human language. Ruzicka's friend, the poodle Archibald, speaks "in Human" very well. The scientific dispute ends with a bet - if Ruzicka teaches the circus elephant to sing, Mrs Whistler will eat up her hat.

Doctor Adéla Neradová, a medical doctor, has succumbed to the desire to uncover a criminal and become a kind of Sherlock Holmes in skirts. The thankless role of her Dr. Watson has fallen to her husband Peter, a professional photographer who helps her with the cases she gets involved in, but usually gets everything mixed up.

No synopsis available yet.

There are still water spirits among us. One group lives in Prague, led by Mr. Wassermann, who is using his wife's family as a servants. All they need is their old house near the river. But the house is to be demolished. They have to stop it. And the only way is to drown Dr. Mrácek, who is responsible for the demolition. But he falls in love with Wassermann's niece Jana. He changes to fish, is mistaken for water spirit from Germany, is drowned and revived again. The other problem is the flour with ears... and so on...

This futuristic science fiction comedy features an atomic bomb blast that causes women to grow beards and lose the ability to have children. A summit meeting is held at the United Nations, with the proposed solution of building a time machine. The decision is made to travel back in time and murder Einstein, with the hopeful result being that without the noted mathematician's research there will be no atomic bombs.

This comedy is about one average family. The father works as master in the factory and his son is studying on high school. One day father must start to visit the evening school. It's the same school as his son visiting. The lives both students are connecting together. The son must teach the math and physics his own father. The father getting to know, that the life of the students is not simple as he supposed.

A telephone mechanic secretly pursues his passion for hunting, deceiving his wife and enlisting friends to cover for him. After a successful hunt, he mistakenly climbs onto the wrong balcony and is apprehended by police, but his disguise prevents identification, leading everyone, including his wife and friends, to deny it’s him.

Honza and Zuzana are very young husband and wife. They have a little daughter of whom willingly occasionally take care the grandparents and Honza's fifteen-year-old brother Martin. Zuzana continues studying and Honza devotes all weekends as an amateur competitor to the motor-cycles at the speedway. Zuzana is not interested in motor-cycles. Martin holds responsible for his brother's marriage and at the advice of his friend Magda, who is of the same age, invites her sister-in-law to the club of Hucul horses so that she does not feel bored. But by misfortunes and unexplained quarrels both young husband and wife start being jealous of one another.

A sincere provincial young man, Frantisek Koudelka 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.

In the Prague Old Town and the adjoining streets there is always plenty of life. Housewives shop, beggars arouse sympathy, the Salvation Army tries to put the godless on the road to salvation by hymns and sermons, and Ferdys Pistora hunts in the pockets of his fellow men and isn't even put off by the presence of an officer of the law. Ferdys sets off to burgle villa of the banker Rosenstok, but a fire breaks out in the house and Ferdys ends up saving the banker's two small children. For this he is celebrated as a hero and gets a place as an errand boy with the Rosenstoks. At home he is visited by representatives of the Salvation Army, Captain Kosterka and Terezka, with whom Ferdys instantly falls in love.

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

To the intolerant and bloody-minded Prague actor Bergner (Milos Kopecký) is the lead in Moliere's Misanthrope which he is studying now as tailor-made. On top of that he is malicious and he advises to the new actress Helenka (Dagmar Havlová) in such a way that she upsets the theatre director. If Bergner accuses somebody of a mischief and he is wrong, he never apologizes. When he almost crashes an older elegant lady by his car on the zebra crossing, instead of an apology he calls her an old ballet dancer... But in Brno's TV he takes part in a discussion on manners and he gives himself as an example of good manners and grace. In the train he meets a magic old man (Ladislav Pesek) who warns him and admonishes him to change his behavior. After he arrives to Prague the old man's threat comes true.

An escort composed of three people transports a huge amount of new one-hundred crown banknotes in a special railway car. At the 196th kilometer, a village girl is waiting at the railway crossing and spots two men removing some packages from the track. The scene is immediately followed by the report of a gun and the unwanted witness is shot dead. Soon afterwards, on the 201st kilometer, the train explodes. Only one of the escorts Lenk (Radoslav Brzobohatý) survives the explosion, taken to hospital with serious injuries. Criminologist Major Kalas (Jirí Sovák) and the very young Second Lieutenant Karlícek (Jaromír Hanzlík) patiently gather facts, leads and testimonies.

An only son, Jirí Valenta (Jaromír Hanzlík), has been drafted to the army. At the barracks he acquires the nickname Seamstress because he sews rugs in his spare time. One day, his friend introduces him to Julka Vávrová (Jorga Kotrbová), a girl he is desperate to get rid of. The naive Jirí falls in love with the girl and accepts her invitation to spend Easter together in the country. There he learns that the girl is the single mother of the young boy Martínek, whose father is the married tractor driver.

In the thick woods at the edge of the Bohemian Forest, two border guards are keeping watch - rifleman Kucera (Rudolf Jelínek) and dog handler Stencl (Josef Hajducík), whose sluggishness and clumsiness have won him the nickname Simpleton. The official army dog, the bitch Líza, picks up the scent of an alien dog on the German side - Black Wolf. She bites through her leash and runs away. Soon afterwards, the border boundary was interrupted. The two soldiers are wounded in the gunfire that follows, but Stencl's shot also hits the target and the intruder - an attractive woman in a black jersey - is dead. The investigation reveals that this agent knew someone among the local residents. The locals are all called in to identify the body but nobody admits to knowing the woman.

Ondrej lives on a farm outside a small town with his family. One day a group of men arrive at the family's house and the harmonious life they've led so far changes drastically for the worse.

On the morning of Christmas Eve, Daddy was supposed to go to the cottage with his little son and stop on the way to pick up Mommy, who still had to go to work. But the crazy daddy, with all the packages, luggage and suitcases, had forgotten the dear little Honzik at home. When he and his wife found out, they returned home. But in the meantime, a neighbor with keys to the apartment discovered the little boy. She forced her husband to take the child to the neighbour's cottage. And the merry-go-round of thwarted journeys doesn't end...

The news that the television is going to make a film about the cooperative's leisure activities leads the locals to extraordinary social and sporting activity, but the only result is a chain of endless confusions, misunderstandings and disasters...

The Prague Research Institute of Air Engineering is to prepare a proposal to reduce dust in Ostrava, especially in the area where the new power plant is to be built. That is why engineers Vojtěch Spára and Jiří Zástěra will travel to Ostrava. Eva Frágnerová, a hygienist, will strongly oppose the power plant project near the housing estate.

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.

In this zany Czechoslovakian comedy, a scientist invents a machine that projects a sleeping person's dream on a screen; disaster soon follows when the machine malfunctions and the cartoon-like dream characters become very real!

The invincible agent Cyril Juan Borguette alias W4C has been assigned a mission to go to a hotel in Prague, get hold of a saltcellar with a plan for the military exploitation of Venus hidden in it, and hand it over to the beautiful agent Alice. He will have to compete for the saltcellar with other agents working for the world's various greater and smaller powers. The head of the Prague counter-intelligence unit gets news of agent W4C's mission. Deficient in personnel, he nominates accountant Foustka as agent 13B. Mr Foustka takes his dog Pajda with him and the two head for the airport. Pajda helps him track down agent W4C in a classy hotel that becomes the battleground for the interests and plans of the secret agents from different countries, each trying to get hold of the precious saltcellar.

Story about the people around the circus and the unfortunate love of a young man an acrobat. Before the dispute escalates so much that, according to the old clown, Vincek ends up with a noose on his back and Lotyš in a bass, fate intervenes and the young acrobat is called up to the war, where he serves with the dragoons. After serving his time and being released into civilian life, he sets out to find the National with his beloved Nina. However, she has not been with the circus for almost a whole year. Her parents took her away and Vincek, to the chagrin of his friends and the principal, decides to go looking for her. After a long journey, he finds his beloved in the Russian Kuznecki circus, but she has changed a lot during the years of separation. A simple girl in love has turned into a calculating, ambitious woman who desires money above all. But Vincek doesn't have you.

The exemplary accountant Antonín Safránek lives his orderly life as a citizen of a small town. His wife Eliska brings up their three children and desperately tries to get by on her husband's low salary every month. At the same time, she sadly watches the luxurious life of their neighbor and other people like him who have no qualms about improving their standard of living by cheating. One day, the infallible Safránek makes a mistake in the cash clearance and there are nine one-hundred Crown bills left in the safe. An unexpected company control carried out the next day passes without problems and the account is closed. The temptation is too strong. The insufficient control enables Safránek to gradually steal one million Crowns.

The Ronov castle has been changed into a hotel, offering stylish facilities to its guests: weddings in the torture chamber, a Black Lancer kidnapping brides, a night's lodging in a family tomb etc. The reformed petty swindler Felix Pacínek (Bohumil Smída) runs the hotel. The business is far from thriving; the place is half-empty, and the jazz band Skeleton, together with their singer Zuzanka (Jaroslava Obermaierová), decide to leave. Nobody in the hotel has any idea that the band is in fact a gang of thieves who have just robbed the Prague State Bank, taking two million crowns from its vaults.

In the forest near the village of Drahovice, a nurse from the local health center is found murdered. Three months ago, another young woman died nearby and a sexual motive was proved in the case of her murder. In the case of the nurse, the motives are not so clear. Two criminologists from Prague - Major Kalas (Rudolf Hrusínský) and Lieutenant Varga (Radoslav Brzobohatý) - patiently collect all available leads and question the villagers.

In a Prague shop, an assistant has been carrying on an affair with the dishonest, married manager. An emotionally repressed auditor with domestic problems of his own uncovers serious stock discrepancies. A test of loyalties and a questioning of values concludes in tragedy.

A car deliberately runs down a young man on a road by a small border town. The locals recognize the dead man as one of the students who were there on volunteer work some time before. The police detectives, Major Kalas (Rudolf Hrusínský) and Lieutenant Varga (Radoslav Brzobohatý) can then get on the trail of the people with whom the victim was involved, especially at the photographic studio headed by Bohuslav Pacer (Bohus Záhorský).

This three-part Austrian/Czech comedy stretches the boundaries of what is considered to be humorous. Part one finds a silent film actor upset because of a rival actor's attention to the former's wife. When he kills his rival, it is only when he is strapped to the electric chair that he realizes that this is his last live scene. The second episode has the wife of an elderly British nobleman having an affair with the young gamekeeper of their estate. Part three finds a peasant woman taking a lover when her husband goes off to fight the war.

The lives of 7 friends in a small Czech town from 1945 to some time after 1958.

A dark comedy about a murder and its consequences presented in a backwards manner, where death is actually a rebirth. The film starts with an "execution" of the main protagonist and goes back to explore his previous actions and motivations.

The fate of a tank crew on the most difficult part of the First Czechoslovak Independent Brigade's combat path during World War II. We also follow the fate of its commander, Sergeant Juraj Klimka. During the bloody battles for the Dukel Pass, he falls in love and it turns out that behind the mask of a sovereign, he is actually a shy and sensitive person.

A fairy tale story about how the enchanted mill was freed from ghosts and how the shepherd Franta knew fear when he had to confess his love to Verunka...