Production
Jaroslav Kučera
Born 1963-02-09
Acting credits
The short story film follows the fate of three young men who will soon have to decide what to do with their lives. The first "Poet", an aspiring author, publishes his first poem, while the sporting career of the second "Rep", a national table tennis player, is disrupted by a maths repartee. The last "Beaver Grizzly" is a tramp more used to solitude, yet he starts a pioneer troop...
Maturita za školou
1973
7.3The summer holidays are approaching and the children are bragging about all the exciting places they are going to visit during the long-awaited two months of summer. Only Tonda is not looking forward to staying in Prague over the holidays. He brightens up after his father announces that the boy can visit some friends of the family in the village of Petipas.
Three of Us and Dog from Petipas
1972
6.8Even a strict and not very popular teacher can achieve extraordinary popularity with his pupils. When their favourite teacher breaks his leg just before a bicycle trip, he is replaced by his strict colleague. Although his involuntary charges are not enthusiastic at first, they eventually become convinced that it is not good to immediately reject a person just because one does not get along with him at first...
Leť, ptáku leť!
1979
Milda, a 13-year-old boy, loves to read adventure novels and imagines himself as a musketeer. He spends his summer vacation with his parents in a cottage in the Jizera Mountains, where he meets new friends and faces various challenges.
Můj přítel d’Artagnan
1991
9.5Sometimes a person faces a difficult decision. Morality is on one scale, money is on the other. A theoretically easy equation for an honest man. But being poor as a church mouse and breaking your allegiance to help your loved ones is a dilemma. If I sell my morality, can it bring family happiness?
Kam slunce nechodí...
1971
Behind the camera
5.6Film crew on the road: Director (Jaroslav Plesl), his Producer (Simona Babcáková), and their Director of Photography (Jirí Vyorálek) and Sound Arist (Johana Svarcova). Starving artists who already have a number of films to their names, Czech Lion award-winning films, excellent reviews and have been screened at numerous festivals, but they don't have audiences. Their next collaborative effort - the Director's lifetime dream - is quickly becoming oblivion because he failed to win a grant, which means it won't be made. And so the frustrated Director and his colleagues await their chance among record-holders of curious disciplines such as crawling with a squash racket or collecting four-leaf clovers. How will the collision of these two worlds end? What will the Director's next film be about?
The Greatest Czechs
2010
5.2A WW I veteran still haunted by his time in the trenches settles in a small town to work for the railroad company. His pretty wife attracts the attention of the lonely young gravedigger.
Guard No. 47
2008
5.2The Grand Hotel is a place between heaven and earth. A place where clouds and human desires float by. This metaphorical story is set in a famous hotel towering above Liberec. Working there, as both guardian and prisoner, is Fleischman, a maintenance man and amateur meteorologist who wanted to be as close to heaven as life would allow him. And you can't get any higher than that.
Grandhotel
2006
6.9Lt. Franta Slama is a top pilot in the Czech Air Force who is assigned to train a promising young flier, Karel Vojtisek, and they soon become friends. When Nazi Germany invades Czechoslovakia in 1939, they both reject the authority of their new leaders and escape to England where they join other Czech exiles in the RAF. While flying a mission over England, Karel crash lands and happens upon the farmhouse of Susan, a young woman whose husband is in the Navy. Karel soon falls head over heels for Susan but, while they enjoy a brief fling, in time Susan decides she prefers the company of the older and more worldly Franta. As Franta and Karel struggle to maintain their friendship despite their romantic rivalry.
Dark Blue World
2001
3.5No synopsis available yet.
Sněžná noc
2009
5.2Adolescence is always a difficult time; it is doubly so for Gábina. For one thing, she is growing up in the normalization years of the 1970s, and then she also has to face the reality that her father is a well-known actor disavowed by the regime. Although he abandoned the family years before, his existence casts an ominous shadow over the lives of not only Gábina, but also her older sister and mother, who are trying to find a civilized way through the social mire of the times.
An Earthly Paradise for the Eyes
2009
7.0Libor, a former teacher, enjoys a well-paid position as a bank manager, living in a luxurious villa outside Prague. His business partners are taken into custody and the authorities have a few questions for him to answer. Rather than wait around, he decides to take off to Moravia with his wife and two children. In the process, he pretends that everything is normal, rediscovers the value of family life, meets up with a former colleague lost in provincial obscurity, and becomes the object of a manhunt. Libor is not a criminal type, merely someone who signs cheques and is drawn into a business world failing to recognise its own criminality (he doesn’t even flee the country).
Long Live the Family!
2011
A young high school student is flying to Canada for a study abroad program. He is very excited and does not even notice the subconscious fear of his parents, especially his mother. When a tragedy occurs far away "across the pond," it turns the lives of all the characters in this story upside down. It shakes up their destinies, lives, feelings, moods, and even their futures...But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Kanadská noc
2008
6.4Over the course of a year, in a small town scarred and beaten down by industrialization, Tonda and Monika, friends since childhood, come to experience what life might be like if they could be with one another – which they seemingly can't. Or can they?
Something Like Happiness
2005
7.0Vaclav, the village loser, in his 40's bordering on autism, lives with his widowed mother on the outskirts of the village. He is seen by villagers as the local fool, nothing but a constant pain for them, but there is a skeleton in the village closet concerning his father's death.
Vaclav
2007
7.0A bittersweet comedy starring the great Vlastimil Brodský as Fanda, an old man who refuses to grow up. Despite pleas from his exasperated wife who wants him to make serious decisions about the future, Fanda ignores the nagging and spends his days seeking amusement and adventure.
Autumn Spring
2001
5.5A story of love, friendship, and solidarity, aspects of life that allows us to live with dignity even at the most difficult of times. Set within the walls of a Communist prison of the 1950s, a tale unfolds of a young couples' fragile love. An angry young man Lubos always felt defiance toward everything around him, and eventually this trait lands him in court. The verdict is clear and the punishment long and hard. But even in prison Lubos is unable to tame his love of jazz or the eternally blazing flame of rebellion he carries inside. There is no place on earth where love cannot grow. Lubos meets Dana in prison. Out of solidarity and support, their fellow prisoners hatch a small rebellion to help them fulfill their love - a love which has appeared in the wrong place at the wrong time.
A Little Piece of Heaven
2005
Produced by Czech television, Mestecko (Small Town) is the directorial debut of theatrical veteran Jan Kraus. This episodic comedy is set in the small town of Mestecko (which literally translates to "small town") right before the Velvet Revolution of 1989. Tonda (Vlastimil Brabec) leads an ensemble cast of townsfolk who are eager to experience capitalism, but are unaware of how it's supposed to work. They set out to pull get-rich-quick schemes and end up creating their own version of free enterprise. For instance, a group of men run for office as a political party called the"Independent Eroticists" so they can hire a stripper to perform for the town. Individual business owners plot various schemes in order to participate in the new economy as the town heads into the '90s
Small Town
2003
5.8Based on real event, Bolero is an excellent story of progressive recovery of a crime. The story surprises all the time, shows new connections, new possibilities, exposes new ideas and facts. It's possible to understand the film on more levels. It describes the position and all the feelings of victim's family, the police work as well as the impact of the crime on it's malefactors. It also touches the topic of moral decay of the descendants of rich, high-posted families. In addition to this, the power of the storyline is accentuated by the quality of the artistic treatment of the whole piece.
Bolero
2004
The story of František Stára, a recovering alcoholic, concertmaster, and composer. After returning from alcohol rehabilitation, he quickly realizes that his euphoric determination to start over is a tragic illusion. His wife has moved out of their apartment and found another man. A similar fiasco awaits him at his former job and later during his short stint at an elementary art school. At the most difficult moment, when František's private hopes and professional plans are collapsing and he resigns, he is selflessly helped by his former fellow patient from the clinic, Eda Mandík. This man, himself weak, inconsistent, and irresponsible, with unexpected and self-destructive devotion, gives up his own personal happiness and energetically spurs his flagging will to save his only friend. The price Eda pays for this act is not small, but his sacrifice was meaningful.
Hodina klavíru
2007
3.8The film's protagonists get an opportunity to make a wish. Consequently, their lives take the path they themselves ordained. Several "coincidences" bring them everything they wanted and they have the chance to experience their wishes. We are not only responsible in our lives for everything that we do, but also for everything we say, we think and desire.
Wings of Christmas
2013
5.1Stone by stone, Imrich is building a small house for his daughter Eva almost entirely on his own. But for Eva, who is about to graduate from school, the prospect of moving into the house is about as appealing as being imprisoned in a jail she herself has helped to build. She has very different plans for her future...
The House
2011
4.0A love story which unfolds over three days and nights on the outskirts of the metropolis. Seventeen-year-old Ema (Dorota Nvotová) breaks up with 'dude' Viktor (Lukás Latinák), has a fling with future pilot Karel (Mário Kubas), and meets a real man (Ondrej Vetchý), a taxi driver without a taxi. In the tangle of relationships, the characters sometimes have an opportunity to share their feelings, but sometimes they simply pass each other by. The story is told through Ema's eyes as she observes the world around her while searching for love, fun, and joy. But she's not the only one looking for happiness, nor the only one who finds it hard to avoid hurting others in the process. Ema's abandoned mother (Jana Hubinská) looks for another chance for love, while Karel's parents try to put long-lost meaning back into their marriage.
Girlie
2002
6.1A tragicomedy full of slapstick and vignettes, and even an unexpected shootout. A family of villagers moves up in the world - to the county seat. Dad works as a butcher at a meatpacking plant, mom is a checker at a supermarket. The daughter is at odds with her homeroom teacher, while the son - a vegetarian, anarchist, and avid pothead - is apprenticing as a butcher to please his father. The kid's in hot water with both his forewoman and the police. But dad isn't much of an example, letting himself be tempted by the charms of a lovely young butcher. However much mom tries - visiting the beauty parlor, her psychologist, or even the confessional - her husband shows his interest by moving out. Mom plots revenge. And somehow an imp gets mixed up in it all
The Gnome
2005
Second-rate writer Marton spends his not-yet-advanced old age in a luxurious retirement home. Apart from his grandson, who lives somewhere in Australia, he has no one else in the world. His wife left him long ago, but he cannot forget her. He feels he cannot bear the empty, monotonous life among equally abandoned people. He confides in his diary that he will commit suicide in the coming days. But then new guests arrive—the beautiful Mrs. Rouvrová and her disabled husband. A spark quickly ignites between Marton and Mrs. Rouvrová, and suicide is forgotten. But mysterious deaths begin to occur in the home, and soon there is no doubt that they are murders. Marton must ultimately suspect his late love, Mrs. Rouvrová...
Černá karta
2005
Věra and Vladimír were a childless married couple. They were united by love, work, and the desire to have a child. When Vladimír suddenly dies at the age of 45, Věra finds herself at rock bottom. Neither her mother's nor her sister's consolation helps. Neither does feeding the cats in the yard behind the house. But the main blow is yet to come for Věra: it comes in the form of payment slips she finds among her husband's belongings, confirming regular payments to an unknown woman! Věra turns to a family friend, Pepa, her husband's colleague from the research institute. While drunk, he reveals that her husband has been having an affair with another woman and has a child with her. Věra is shocked and offended. She had wanted a child so badly, and Vladimír ended up conceiving one with a complete stranger. Věra sets out to find this unknown woman. She wants to know what makes her so amazing that she captivated her husband...
Kočky
2006