A touching story of a Czech boy who is liberated from a concentration camp and then picked up by a Czechoslovak Army laundry unit under Soviet command. He becomes the unit’s mascot, and is given the nickname “prace” or “slingshot bearer” after Czech boys who had fought with slingshots in the Czech Hussite armies of the 15th century. The boy, along with a little Slovak girl whom the unit also rescues up along the way, participate in the liberation of his homeland.Read More »
Jan Švankmajer at 85 years of age is one of the most prominent artists of European cinema. His work has inspired and guided generations of directors, and his work represents a sharp and merciless exploration of human nature which is entirely unique. When Švankmajer decided to stop filming after Insect (2018), his producer suggested that the creative processes which ferment within their film company Athanor should be preserved on film.Read More »
AMG: In this animated feature-length movie, five different exploits of Sinbad the sailor (originally five separate “shorts” created between 1971-1974) get him mixed up with the pretty daughters of exotic potentates, with powerful monsters that threaten his existence, and with all sorts of teeming jungle life. As Sinbad triumphs over adversity, parents should be warned that some scenes of unexpected cruelty and questionable ethics (the Old Man of the Sea has his head crushed while he is too drunk to know what he is doing), may not be the best fare for smaller totsRead More »
This is a live action film adaptation of “Too Loud a Solitude” released in the Czech Republic in 1996, one year before Bohumil Hrabal’s death. And there is a big eastern egg in the film that Hrabal played a cameo role in this film.Read More »
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Set in central Europe during 2041, a female detective investigates the case of a murdered couple where a restoration team is able to bring one of them back to life.Read More »
While driving to Poland, a Czech man and woman have an argument. The woman gets out of the car to relieve herself, and the driver of the car runs over her, killing her. Meanwhile, in a Czech mountain town, a young man inquires after the girl, which piques the interest of the police.Read More »
One lesser known Vorliceks movie. Unfortunately NO ENGLISH SUBS yet.
Radek Simek, the driver of a postal car, is shot dead on his regular route. The Investigators give up initial suspicions of robbery, because he carried no greater amount of money. Even questioning Honza Marek, another mail car driver, brings no result. When the circumstances are becoming more and more suspicious. Marek decides to track down the killer on his own.Read More »
It is 1947 and the Beskydy Mountains still display traces of war. A ten-year old boy pastures a herd of cows in a meadow housing a damaged German tank. The little herdsman lives with his half-blind grandfather in a village poorhouse. His mother Kateřina, an apathetic and unhinged woman, works for the farmer Potocký. The boy has no father. He has got used to working from morning till evening and he never attended school. No one ever stands up for him, only Uncle Králík comes from time to time and brings him a gift. He also enjoys the love of his granddad who often tells him stories about the elf king and his treasure. In the meantime, two members of the troops supporting the Ukrainian nationalist Bandera, nicknamed Blondy and Beardy, have a deal with the village mayor that a sabotage group will pass through the village…Read More »
Summary:
Director Zdeněk Sirový made his most important contribution to the Czechoslovak New Wave with the film Smuteční slavnost (Funeral Ceremonies, 1969). As a result, one of his earlier achievements, the intimate psychological drama Finský nůž (The Finnish Knife, 1965), has been somewhat overlooked. The main protagonists are two young men who have become convinced that they have killed someone in a fight that they unfortunately might have provoked. Twenty-year-old Tonda (Karel Meister) and seventeen-year-old Honza (Jaromír Hanzlík) flee from justice even before their guilt for the death has been determined. They make it to Poland but the tension between them mounts and after their return home they part ways… Besides the spectacular chiaroscuro in the camera work of Jan Čuřík, this intimate film offers a convincing testimony of a period wherein young people leading externally untroubled, purposeful lives were typically beset by deep internal fears and uncertainties about their place in life.Read More »