Two curious extraterrestrials land with their dustbin at a panel-house estate one day. Their task is to study the human race by studying Dr. Jánský, an average worker of the Institute for Relations with the Extraterrestrial Civilizations, whom their presence drives mad. Who would like to be selected as a perfect sample of mediocrity and insignificance that, moreover, cannot lie? The playful comedy by Oldřich Lipský is entirely based on the central couple, Mr. A and Mr. B, performed by the comedian duo Lasica – Satinský, topped up by the drawings by Vladimír Jiránek.

Srdecny.pozdrav.ze.zemekoule.1982.720p.HDTV.x264-DON.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 38 min 27 s
Size: 	2.87 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	986x720 
Aspect ratio:  	4:3
Frame rate: 	25.000 fps
Bit rate: 	3 791 kb/s
BPP: 	0.214
Audio
#1:  	Czech 5.1ch AC-3 @ 384 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/CC9AC09874EA7D1/Srdecny.pozdrav.ze.zemekoule.1982.720p.HDTV.x264-DON.mkv

Language(s):Czech
Subtitles:English

The post Oldrich Lipský – Srdecný pozdrav ze zemekoule AKA Hearty Greetings from the Globe (1983) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

From ce-review.org
Menzel could not work in films for some time after Skřivánci na niti. It was a period when he had to decide if he would accept the rules dictated by the regime or leave his profession yet keep his “artistic freedom.” This difficult situation was also faced by other members of the Czech New Wave. Miloš Forman, Jan Němec and Ivan Passer decided to emigrate, while Věra Chytilová and Evald Schorm stayed in Czechoslovakia even though they could not work as film directors (Chytilová for seven years, Schorm for 17 years).Menzel decided to continue as a film director in Czechoslovakia. Choosing this possibility meant making films within the Socialist ideological scheme: in other words, film as propaganda. The result was a film called Kdo hledá zlaté dno (Who looks for Gold?, 1974), a story about a young man who decides to build a dam with other Socialists. One of the collaborators on the script was Zdeněk Svěrák, who went on to work further with Menzel and also wrote the script for the Oscar-winning Kolja (Kolya, 1996).
Kdo hledá zlaté dno aka Who Looks for Gold? was entered into the 25th Berlin International Film Festival.
Menzel had relative freedom in making his films after that.

General
Container:  	AVI
Runtime: 	1h 31mn
Size: 	1.09 GiB
Video
Codec: 	XviD
Resolution: 	640x480 
Aspect ratio:  	4:3
Frame rate: 	25.000 fps
Bit rate: 	1 560 Kbps
BPP: 	0.203
Audio
#1:  	2.0ch MP3 @ 128 Kbps

https://nitro.download/view/0DDA08B92D564CF/Who_Looks_for_Gold_(Jiri_Menzel,_1974).avi
https://nitro.download/view/9E3BC1665740E93/Who_Looks_for_Gold_(Jiri_Menzel,_1974).srt

Language(s):Czech
Subtitles:English

The post Jirí Menzel – Kdo hledá zlaté dno aka Who Looks for Gold? (1975) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

The filmmaker and film preservationist Shivendra Singh Dungarpur (who, according to his IMDB page, also belongs to the former royal family of Dungarpur State in Rajasthan, India) fell in love with Jirí Menzel’s Czech new wave classic Closely Observed Trains (a.k.a. Closely Followed Trains) back when he was a film student. He longed to meet the man behind this wonderful film and many years later his dream came true.

In October 2010, after being warned Jirí wasn’t very patient with interviews, Shivendra headed over to Prague to meet the director, actor and writer. The pair hit it off and Shivendra was invited back to Jirí’s house the next day to continue the interview. During these initial chats, Jirí mentioned so many different films and filmmakers from and influenced by the golden age of Czech cinema that Shivendra was swallowed up by the world and the off-the-cuff interview developed into an 8-year project that involved multiple visits to Prague over that time, as well as trips elsewhere around the world to interview a vast range of filmmakers, writers and actors all tied into the world of the Czech new wave.

This epic project was eventually edited into the 7-hour long documentary CzechMate: In Search of Jirí Menzel. Long being advocates of Czech cinema, as well as distributing Dungarpur’s 2012 documentary Celluloid Man in the UK, Second Run have released Czechmate on Blu-ray. Being a fairly recent convert to the Czech new wave, I eagerly gave the film a watch and my thoughts follow.

As hinted at in my introduction, though subtitled In Search of Jirí Menzel, Czechmate explores Czech cinema in general, from the birth of the new wave, through to the modern-day. We always return to Jirí though, delving into his life and career. This works very well, as he was one of the key figures in the new wave but continued to work in Czechoslovakia (and later the Czech Republic) after many of his contemporaries fled the country or had their work suppressed after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. This makes him a particularly interesting filmmaker to explore too, due to some detractors claiming he was towing the party line. The way he puts it though, was that he just wanted to carry on making films. Plus, he did release a few quietly subversive films during the period of Soviet control.

The documentary has quite a free-flowing style. It doesn’t stick closely to any sort of chronological order. Instead, though key turning points in Czech history are spread out sequentially, there’s an almost stream-of-consciousness approach where the film regularly goes off on a tangent about a particular film or filmmaker that crops up during the core discussion.

This loose style, matched with the vast number of contributors and unwieldy length of the film means it can be easy to get a little lost at times, particularly with who is who on screen. There are name captions to begin with but not when people return, so it can be hard to remember several hours (or days if you break it up as I did) down the line who they are. Due to this style, it’s probably better to be at least a little knowledgable about the Czech new wave before approaching the film, even though a great amount of ground is covered in the film itself.

The grand scale and sheer breadth of interviewees in the film must be applauded and if a film about the subject could ever be called definitive, this is it. Shivendra seems to have been deeply dedicated, passionate and even a little ruthless at times in putting the film together. Reportedly, the notoriously fiery Jan Nemec didn’t want to speak to Shivendra, even after he made the long trip over to see him, so Shivendra tricked Nemec, lying about bringing a crew to film an interview. He managed to grab a few questions with Nemec though and talked him into a later interview, though Nemec took this opportunity to get his own back for the deception with an icy reception. The dogged Shivendra managed to get some gold though before Nemec died, part-way through production.

Also impressive is the warmth and playfulness that is evident in the film. This is no cold, clinic study of cinematic history. It’s an affectionate tribute that lets its subjects open up and be honest about their life and work. There’s plenty of footage of Jirí goofing around for the camera too and I loved the anecdote Ivan Passer regales about how he and Milos Forman got past the border guards to flee the country in 1968.

Like Mark Cousins’ Story of Film and Women Make Film, Czechmate also helps stoke up an appreciation of Czech cinema through a huge collection of clips from the films being discussed. It made me desperate to further explore the new wave and Jirí’s work, as well as reminding me how wonderful many of the titles are that I’ve already seen.

So, though its length will seem overwhelming, and indeed it will probably be best served in 3 or 4 smaller chunks, Czechmate is a wonderful, affectionate and of course thorough journey through a unique movement in cinema history and one of its key figures. I’d highly recommend it to any lovers of film.

Czechmate Part 1.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	3 h 43 min
Size: 	4.70 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1024x576 
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
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https://nitro.download/view/0BF5D94F4918BC8/Czechmate_Part_1.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/BF1E56056FF67EE/Czechmate_Part_2.mkv

https://rapidgator.net/file/c1f49479a354696b591bb80d25b3663c/Czechmate_Part_1.mkv https://rapidgator.net/file/42cf1725a1897f2f388160af0059a638/Czechmate_Part_2.mkv

Language(s):Czech/English/French/Hungarian/Polish/Russian/Slovak
Subtitles:English

The post Shivendra Singh Dungarpur – CzechMate: In Search of Jirí Menzel (2018) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis wrote:
Short Cut is a comedy revealed more in the acting and witty dialogue than in the simple premise of the story itself: how the Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal was born. Actually, the story is, in many ways, the writer’s conception.

Postriziny.1981.576p.BluRay.AAC2.0.x264-NEOLONE.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 38 min
Size: 	3.26 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	790x576 
Aspect ratio:  	1.372
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	4 625 kb/s
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https://nitro.download/view/D495A9746E443C1/Postriziny.1981.576p.BluRay.AAC2.0.x264-NEOLONE.mkv

Language(s):Czech
Subtitles:English

The post Jirí Menzel – Postriziny AKA Cutting it Short (1981) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

The Little Apocalypse is a 1993 French comedy film, an adaptation of Tadeusz Konwicki’s novel, directed by Costa-Gavras. It was entered into the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival. It follows the trials of a Pole who lives in France who wants his written work published. Unable to get anywhere, he starts to enlist help from others, resorting to some unusual extremes.

Synopsis:
An unknown Polish writer can’t publish his novels, so his ex-wife decides to help him and get some of the profit for herself. She finally finds a publisher, but there’s a strange single condition that could cost the writer his life.

La Petite Apocalypse (1993).mkv

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Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1h 51mn
Size: 	3.19 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
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Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
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https://nitro.download/view/077BB68C05AB940/La_Petite_Apocalypse_(1993).mkv
https://nitro.download/view/3867B7223BF829D/La_Petite_Apocalypse_(1993)_English_autotranslated.srt

Language(s):French, Polish
Subtitles:French HoH, French forced for polish parts, English (autotranslated)

The post Costa-Gavras – La Petite Apocalypse AKA The Little Apocalypse (1993) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
The charming singer Clara Regina has many admirers. Even the minister of justice fights for her favour, especially enchanted by Clara’s lullaby. Clara’s successes with men are watched with displeasure by her jealous husband, Ikaro Volante. The minister sends a bouquet and a pearl necklace to the singer. The juggler Piterman steals the pearls but frames her shy assistant Pepícek, who, along with inexperienced defence lawyer Vilém Bojanovský, falls victim to blind justice in an unfair world full of intrigue… The form of this outwardly noncommittal crime musical, featuring the songs of Šlitr and Suchý, is influenced by the dark atmosphere that pervaded society after the Prague Spring efforts at reform were crushed in August 1968: the two convicts, performed by this duo from Prague’s Semafor theatre, can now do nothing but sing.

Following Zlocin v dívcí škole (The Crime at the Girls’ School, 1965), director Jirí Menzel returned to his collaboration with novelist Josef Škvorecký. But prior to this 1968 motion picture, he had become famous for creating Ostre sledované vlaky (Closely Watched Trains, 1966) and the stylish Rozmarné léto (Capricious Summer, 1967), a bittersweet comedy based on a novel by Vladislav Vancura. The story of Zlocin v šantánu (Crime in the Night-Club), played out according to a screenplay Menzel devised with Škvorecký, takes place in the timeless atmosphere of an elegant cabaret.

Crime.in.the.Night.Club.1968.X264.AVIS.PBT.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 25 min
Size: 	1.61 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
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Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	2 500 kb/s
BPP: 	0.263
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#1:  	2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/CB7A50D24CC7DCF/Crime.in.the.Night.Club.1968.X264.AVIS.PBT.mkv https://nitro.download/view/34B8BB412FBAB42/Crime_in_the_Night_Club_(1968)_24p.srt

Language(s):Czech
Subtitles:English

The post Jirí Menzel – Zlocin v santánu aka Crime in the Night Club (1968) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Shot in 1968, but banned by the Czech government until the fall of the Communist regime in 1990, Menzel’s wry comic drama is a hymn to humanity and nonconformity. The film’s principal characters are residents of a state-run junkyard / labour camp for those whose actions have been deemed counter-revolutionary. On one side of the yard live the men, most sent here for re-education. On the other side, are a group of women interned for the crime of attempted defection. Separately, the two groups lazily toil, sorting out piles of scrap metal (one huge pile is nothing less than a veritable mountain of crucifixes and religious icons); together, they flirt, philosophize, and occasionally sneak off behind the hillocks of slag to make love. Larks on a String is at once a stinging indictment of the repressive politics of Czechoslovakia’s past, and an endearing comedy and affecting love story.

2.17GB | 1h 34m | 958×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/EACF46F5642B0DE/Larks.on.a.String.1969.BDRIP.576p.x264.AC3.mkv
or
https://nitro.download/view/A1FEC28F7995895/Larks.on.a.String.1969.BDRIP.576p.x264.AC3.part1.rar
https://nitro.download/view/5D9A8953EFE7592/Larks.on.a.String.1969.BDRIP.576p.x264.AC3.part2.rar
https://nitro.download/view/E39AFDFB267786B/Larks.on.a.String.1969.BDRIP.576p.x264.AC3.part3.rar

Language:Czech
Subtitles:English

The post Jirí Menzel – Skrivánci na niti AKA Larks on a String (1969) first appeared on Cinema of the World.