Alena Skokanová

Karel Vachek’s graduate film offers us a documentary essay which is both a light-hearted and aggressive little piece and also a parody of investigative film journalism. The Strážnice folk festival, backed by the cultural Party apparatus of the time, for years had little to commend itself to authentic folklore. In the film the event assumes the form of a bizarre stage spectacle with almost surrealistic elements that Vachek reinforces with unconventional approaches (commentary appearing as titles on screen, singing, declamations into the camera, feature etudes, the fusion of news coverage and fiction). The result is a stirring film collage depicting various characters, from crowd-pleasers, Easter egg decorators, kitsch artists and peddlers, to museologists and local residents, all of whom come up against the eccentric "identical” twin reporters Karel and Jan Saudek and a bored actress who appears as an extra. Using their special blend of irony and wit, they present us with the sad truth.

A dramatic story of three friends happily spending time on their own in a mountain cottage in the High Tatras. On the arrival of the wife of one of them their perfect friendship is put to a test.

Television production based on the short story by S. Zweig. The chess game played by two men is not only the central event, but also a metaphor for a story about human aggression, guilt and liberation.

The original TV production of the fairy tale by M. Rázusová-Martáková.

No synopsis available yet.