Ivan Vyskočil

Do you have dreams? Any unfulfilled wishes? A group of retirees set out on a trip to fulfill them and reminisce about their younger years working at the municipal spa. Kňoura, Josefa, Janata, Kačera, and grandson Tomáš are in for a trip they will never forget. A helicopter flight, sleeping under the stars, dinner at a posh restaurant, a race with a Formula 1 driver, but also fun on the merry-go-round.

Teacher Tomáš Majer, who joined a former special school in 2010, has disappeared. He arrived at the school several months after his sister Jana, also a teacher, was murdered. During the school year, the boys who murdered Jana Majerová mysteriously died. Tomáš Majer most likely avenged his sister in cold blood.

A short film based on the book by Slovak author Pavol Zeleňák, "Keď sú tajomstvá iba služobné" (When Secrets Are Only Official). In four tragicomic short stories—banking, confessional, medical, and state secrets—the viewer learns what can happen when bank clerks, priests, doctors, and ministers reveal or abuse official secrets. Regardless of the reason for their actions, they can cause curious problems or even tragedy.

Seven seemingly unconnected fairy tales - glued together only by folklore, mood, color and light - make up this Czech collection of visual poetry. The original piece of literature, written by Karel Jaromír Erben in 1853, contained twelve tales.

Hana is a psychologist and a thoroughly independent woman. Her unemployed husband, jealous of his wife, finds a younger girlfriend, but their teenage son Honzik is frustrated; everyone ignores him. Hana's patient Eva, an attractive middle-aged woman, is having problems with her 25-year-old son; she is in love with her son's friend and her son is offended by her behavior. To complete the circle, he falls in love with Hana and Honzik is utterly disgusted by their affair. Another of Hana's patients is Dub, a millionaire who can have pretty much anything, or anyone, he wants. He wants Hana. But he can't have her.

Ester Krumbachová - a costume designer, screenwriter, director; one of the boldest personalities of the Czech New Wave. She worked in theatre, she was a writer and an illustrator. She co-created films such as O slavnosti a hostech (1966), Sedmikrásky (1966), Vsichni dobrí rodáci (1969), Pension pro svobodné pány (1968), Valerie a týden divu (1970), Slamený klobouk (1972) and many others. In the 1960s, she was a 'pivot' of the art scene in Prague, attracting artists who were on the threshold of their career, just setting out to find their own form of self-realization. Those who underwent her tutelage remember her forever. Director Vera Chytilová talks to those who knew Ester Krumbachová, who worked with her, befriended her, loved her. She sets off on a search that is to end by answering the question: Who was Ester?

The filmed fairy-tale is a comedy based on the classical story about Reason and Happiness. This enchanting couple is ever debating on which of the two is more important for mankind, their encounters are watched by the third fairy-tale figure aunt Envy. A story of true love that wins over the evil powers of immortal human envy.

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.

No synopsis available yet.

No synopsis available yet.

The countess celebrates her sixtieth birthday at the moment when she is about to leave her castle. The new workers' government wants to mercilessly destroy the nobility. But because Elizabeth Anna Marie, Countess of Lansdorf and Scheinberg, and later domestic worker Lansdorfová, realizes that "one must keep one's customs and promises, even if they are ridiculous and pointless," she wants to carry out a foolish plan to celebrate her 70th birthday at the family estate, despite the regime and her opponents in the city...

No synopsis available yet.

A historical film that takes place on the eve of the thirty year war combines aspects of fairy-tales with historical dramas, fencing with a child heroes who find themselves in great dangers. We are in the year 1611 and mercenaries that had previously invaded Czech lands now have to withdraw before the Hungarian king's army. In this chaos a magical bottle, that fulfills the owner one single wish, appears among some fugitives - however after the fulfillment it has to be sold for half it's price to a new owner. The director Ludvík Ráža has created an attractive and surprisingly cruel film aimed not only at young viewers.

Even a top athlete, a discus thrower, faces difficulties when she has to consider her future. She seems to lack nothing: the socialist physical education provides her with all the necessary facilities to prepare for the Olympics, she trusts a responsible coach. However, when she returns to her hometown, she still considers whether she made the right decision. When she becomes pregnant, she finds herself at a crucial moment.

In the final days of the Second World War in 1945 Frantisek Pribyl is killed during a shoot-out with the Germans. After the funeral, the widow (Jana Svandová) and her two young sons Martin and Ondra move to her deceased husband's native village at the foot of the Kralický Snezník mountains. Life in the borderlands is far from easy for the lonely woman. The village is almost deserted, food supplies are delayed; the Werwolf (Nazi guerrilla squads) are hiding in the mountains, and shooting is heard from time to time. The elder son Ondra (Michal Dlouhý) is helping out his mother and at the same time absorbing intense new experiences. He meets an old Czech resident Skurek (Lubomír Kostelka), German women working in the forest, soldiers from the engineering units removing the mines, and a young first lieutenant. At night he dreams about his dead father whom he loved very much. This is why he runs away from home when he finds out that the lieutenant is courting his mother.

No synopsis available yet.

No synopsis available yet.

The fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast" has been adapted countless times. For example, as a ballet or as a famous French film. The writer F. Hrubín retold it for children, and a television story about the brave Rozárka and the cursed king was also created based on his original work.

A holiday story about how little Jakub found the right man for his mother. An advertisement in which Mr. Vlk offers free accommodation at his country cottage in exchange for holiday housekeeping brings together three people, each unhappy in their own way: Vlk, an "almost old bachelor", whose acquaintance with a young girl, Mrs. Jelínková, who is in vain looking for a stronger emotional relationship after the death of her husband, is not working out, and little Jakub, for whom none of his mother's suitors have yet been able to replace his deceased father. The situation becomes complicated when his mother falls ill and Vlk has to take care of the boy alone. Jakub wins a new father, thanks to him the two adults become closer, and he finally has the father he chose and deserved.

No synopsis available yet.

No synopsis available yet.

The Francs with their daughters Olina and Jirina are building a villa in the village of Rezkovice. Father Franc (Vladimír Mensík) doesn't allow himself a minute's respire and restlessly forces to work his wife, both daughters and Zdenek, Jirina's suitor. Zdenek does not protest against it and, in addition, he is skillful. On the contrary, Olina's boyfriend Libor is worse at work. He studies at the Technical College and he does not succeed much in grasping the building handicraft. Franc, proud of his pursuits, decides that he will arrange the wedding for both daughters and then hand them over the key of the villa in which both pairs have luxuriously furnished flats.

Ten-year-old David joins a sailing club. He trains hard and helps repair the sailing boats, but people have to take turns actually sailing. The club chairman Vala wants David to sail with his son Olda. Olda's previous team mate Béda has grown too fast, but with little David Olda could win a place on the regatta to Finland. Olda is arrogant and accustomed to winning with little effort; he bullies David and calls him "Greenhorn". He makes David his servant and blames him when things go wrong.

A budding teacher comes from Prague to the South Bohemian district town where her fiancé Jakub, a young promising engineer at the local paper mill, lives. Petra is getting to know her new colleagues at school and the children in her new class, and is practicing hard with the Komenium music group, whose members she has known since her studies. She also gets to know Jakub's colleagues and the director of the paper mill, to whose position Jakub would like to be appointed after his retirement. It is this desire for a high position that leads Jakub to behave and act in a way that Petra cannot approve of.

This wacky musical comedy builds on absurd ideas, parodic humour and many variously subverted references to famous...

The Slippers of Happiness is another film made by the Slovak Film Production in co-production with West German companies based on classic world fairy tales. After Slovak folk tales [The Greatest Peck in the World, Salt Over Gold] and the works of German fairy tale writers Wilhelm Hauff [The False Prince] and the Brothers Grimm [The Land of the Thrush's Beard, Perinbaba], screenwriter Alex Koenigsmark and director Juraj Herz were inspired by the famous fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. It tells the story of slippers that the Fairy of Fortune enchanted so that they would fulfill every human wish and thus bring people happiness. The filmmakers humorously transferred the plot from Copenhagen to old Prague.

Leo Popper is a happy family man living in rural Bohemia in the years preceding the Nazi invasion. Out of economic necessity he moves with his family to the big city and becomes an enterprising vacuum cleaner salesman. There he embarks on a series of adulterous adventures, has encounters with boxing pros and famous portrait artists, and schemes to purchase the perfect pond to fulfill his passion for fishing. When the Nazis gain control, the comedy turns sour - he loses his lake, his job, and finally, his family.

No synopsis available yet.

The distressing fate of the Czech great Jan Amos Komenský, forced to leave his homeland after the White Mountain disaster. It depicts his encounters with various European personalities of the 17th century - the Queen of Sweden, artists and scientists. It emphasises the hero's nobility, but also his inner resilience, which allowed him to overcome many personal and professional tragedies. The parable of The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart becomes part of the story. However, Comenius's concept is sculpturally lifeless and, in particular, the religious dimension is "erased" from it. The simplistic biography therefore does not avoid schoolboyish dryness.

The film is essentially a feature-length commercial for an exhibition to mark the 40th anniversary of the nationalisation of the Czechoslovak film industry, to be held at the Prague U Hybernu venue. The protagonists of the piece are comedians Oldrich Kaiser and Jirí Lábus, who are set to accept an award from Japanese television representatives at the exhibition. At the same time, five gangsters plot to seize a revolutionary invention devised by professor Suzuki - a super holograph, which enables any figure from television to be transported in the flesh into the real world, and vice-versa.

Chronicle of frontier division Czech police (SNB) in the years 1946 - 1949.

The idea of mystery unites the three debut stories - the original Bermuda Triangle with its mysterious phenomena has begun to shift and can be traced anywhere in the world, including Czech and Slovak territory. Here, too, unexplained shifts in space and time occur. This idea is supported by the aforementioned short stories, but the inventiveness of the subject matter and staging is very heavy-handed, and the film passed through the cinemas without much interest.

No synopsis available yet.

An historical depiction of the events preceding the political murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, would-be emperor of the Austro-Hungarian throne, in Sarajevo on June 28th, 1914.

The true story of the Bavarian Tailor Albrecht Berblinger who, after a strange encounter with a balloon starts building a flying machine. Although not an engineer by profession, he never gives up. No matter how many obstacles are put in his way nor how many failures he endures, his ardour is never dampened. He continues with his dream to fly like a bird.

Taxi driver Koukal (Miroslav Machácek) is stopped by the police for a routine traffic check. In the boot of his car the police find the body of a naked man. Koukal is arrested even though he claims he knows nothing about it. The case is assigned to Major Mlynár (Milan Sandhaus). The police identify the corpse as that of an Austrian citizen called Mitrik. Koukal has been regularly driving people interested in gambling to a secret gaming den. The police are put onto the gambling den by another taxi driver, who admits that he drove Mitrik there. Mlynár and officer cadet Pecka (Ivan Vyskocil) feign interest in gambling and visit the gaming den incognito.

The fisherman Fuksa fishes in the creek an old bottle and he sells it to innkeeper Merta. When Merta opens it, a genie appears, who can fulfill all his wishes.

No synopsis available yet.

A drama from the period of village collectivisation in 1947-1948, it depicts the life of former beggars who, after the war and land reform, acquire land and dream of becoming wealthy landlords. New social conditions, the onset of collectivisation, but also the great drought bring with them unwelcome changes.

Energetic Dr. Alice Váňová becomes the pit doctor at Mír Mine and spearheads a silicosis prevention study requiring miners to drink milk regularly. The miners, led by a tight-knit group, stubbornly refuse public participation. Determined union chair Janeček resorts to psychological tactics and pressure campaigns to force their compliance, turning a health initiative into a tense battle of wills.

Sherlock Holmes likes to play violin and expects a great career in music. He gets a place in a spa orchestra, but he is again and again distracted by criminal cases. Therefore he is the only one who does not see that his violin has no future. He solves the criminal mysteries in passing but the final test shows that the famous detective is tone-deaf.

No synopsis available yet.

No synopsis available yet.

Good-looking Edita Beningerová (Jana Brejchová) arrives at a chemical factory in the North Bohemian town of Ústí nad Labem together with her young assistant Nada (Zlata Adamovská). She is hoping that her ex-husband, outstanding practical chemical engineer Vik Panc (Eduard Cupák), will help her conduct an experiment to validate her proposed theoretical method of isolating cholesterol from lanolin. The success of Edita's invention is crucial for her career at the Prague Institute of Chemistry. Vik's roommate from his hostel Bréta (Ivan Vyskocil) is thrilled. He will finally meet the mysterious and fascinating Edita about whom he has learned so much from Vik.

The true story of a Czechoslovak mountaineering expedition that set out in 1969 to conquer one of the most challenging peaks in the Himalayas. In a semi-documentary manner, it depicts the men's harrowing journey, which is beset by problems with local guides, worsening weather, and growing rifts between them. In addition, news reaches the expedition leader of the tragic end of the Czechoslovak expedition to Hindukusha. Each of the six men must face their own problems and dilemmas, but the common goal of overcoming the difficult mountain brings them together. But will the desire to climb one of the world's most dangerous peaks be stronger than the cost of human life?

Lieutenant Vasátko is spending Christmas vacation in a mountain cabin where a diverse group of people have gathered. The painter Horác and two married couples, the director Skorkovský and his wife and his new discovery, the not very clever Jájinka and her husband. There is a murder and an unusual denouement.

The heroine of the story is a teenage Jitka Pažoutová, suffering from her fatness and clumsiness. For her, the real torture is especially the gym classes led by a sympathetic gym teacher, nicknamed Bohoušek by the girls. A change for the better is a dodgeball match, which the girls win thanks to Jitka's "guns", which simply cannot be caught. At the tournament, Jitka meets Honza Koubek - a boy who insults her, but then apologizes to her and persuades her to try using her strength in the shot put...

A group of the bourgeois head for a prominent figure's birthday party. As they venture through the woods and have a picnic, they're suddenly surrounded by some suspicious strangers.

The Haszler songs of Prague, so popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, have not aged. They are still sung in pubs and on construction sites, in short, everywhere. They also have their place in the love stories from old Prague, so beautifully told by Miss Veronika. Their heroine is Miss Stázi, who at first had no luck in love with the student Tadeáš. But then she fell in love with three gentlemen at once. The shy Mr. Alois, the cheerful Mr. France and Mr. Johannes, who seduced her behind the Horse Gate. But in the end she preferred the old but rich landlord. Three abandoned gentlemen nearly took their own lives under the Stone Bridge. But grief overcame them and the gentlemen settled down to marriages richly blessed with adorable children. And Miss Stasi? She ran away from the old man and returned to Mr. Franco when he came home from the army.

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 story takes place during the 1960s. A young teacher takes on the role of a tutor in a Prague youth protection institution. Filming was stopped in 1968 and the final editing of the footage was not done until early 1989.

A satiric film that through a lecture of a cracked brain pedant describes the increasing disobedience of children. It calls us for protection against misbehaved children and wants to "defend" the world of adults from disastrous consequences of the ungrateful children's deeds. The film is remarkable for the inimitable humor of Milos Macourek.

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.

A film in five episodes, all based on an attempt to show the life of young people today, their feelings and relationships, their behaviour in public and private life.

Journalist learns about battle in a small village.

The military airfield crew are not allowed to leave the area because alert level two has been declared. All walks have been cancelled and Private Standa Urban is looking forward to meeting his girlfriend who has come to visit him. His friends from the infirmary are sympathetic and conspiratorially organise the whole event...

A quintet of vignettes based on short stories by Bohumil Hrabal: an eventful trip to the motorcycle races results in drunkenness, long-winded discussions, and death; two elderly men create false biographies; insurance agents visit an eccentric painter/goat farmer and his mother; guests at a wedding reception remain oblivious to outlying misery; and a working-class boy romances a Roma girl.

Jurácek's feature debut is shot in two parts. In the first, a corporal accompanies a new recruit with a sore Achilles tendon for his physical, and all the girls or young women they see are played by the same actress (Ruzickova). In the longer second segment, shot with the help of the Czechoslovakia army, the soldiers pass the time during basic training and maneuvers by talking about girls.

It is almost twenty years after the war. Wounds of the past that have never fully healed, but are still carried by many in their hearts. Marie Vláčilová, a survivor of one of the prison camps in Germany, also carries the traumas of the time with her. Now, so many years later, a mass grave of prisoners from that camp has been found and investigators visit Marie to get any information they can from her about the camp. With her important information, she is then to become a crown witness for the prosecution in Germany and now prepares to travel. But this brings back more and more unpleasant memories - especially of her daughter Paula, who has been through German re-education and hardly knew her mother after the reunion...

The filmmakers gave a glimpse into an everyday family through four micro-stories that focused mainly on love plots. They notice the usual situations when things go wrong - for example, on a Sunday off or on holiday, they show how a misunderstood person feels...