Ivo Špalj

Life of Czech composer Smetana, his search for love and artistic inspiration despite hearing loss, and quest for his muse Eliska. Navigating personal and professional challenges and the founding of the National Theatre in Prague.

Jan Svankmajer, 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 represents a sharp and merciless exploration of human nature which is entirely unique. When he decided to retire from filmmaking after "Insect" (2018), his producer suggested that the creative processes which ferment within their company Athanor should be preserved on film. Over three years, the directors of this documentary followed the life of Jan Svankmajer, elucidating his artistic principles, as well as his collaboration with old friend and producer Jaromír Kallista. The film is also haunted by the memory of Eva Svankmajerová, his wife and creative partner, muse and inseparable other half. Playful and poetic, candid and with a touch of Czech humour, it is an ode to creation and to companionship.

Animation of recently discovered floor drawings on the wall of the former ghetto, combined with a reference to the opera Brundibár, which was supposed to become proof to the world of the wonderful lives of imprisoned children.

A story of an extraordinary artist who has unintentionally signed a deal with a devil. Jiří Trnka was one of the biggest Czech artists of the 20th century and one of the founders of the puppet animation. His work demonstrated the world that communist society can provide better conditions for extraordinary artistic creations. The ideological clash between West and East didn’t leave children and their stories apart from their struggle in ideological and political positions.

The Dung Beetle is late, the Parasite is asleep and Mrs Larva is more interested in her knitting than the director’s instructions. It’s clear: this amateur theatre company has a long way to go before they can perform their version of "The Insect Play", a famous satirical work from 1922 by the brothers Karel and Josef Čapek which features insects with decidedly human traits: greed, egocentrism, jealousy.

On summer vacation a young teenager finds himself hanging out alone on the streets of his neighbourhood, all his friends having gone to the country with their parents. Near his home he meets a disturbing character, a drug pusher looking for clients, who introduces him to an artificial paradise. The teenager discovers a seductive and terrifying world that frequently draws him back to his neighbour.

The hero of the popular Czech animated series Pat and Mat, have come to us with their more or less successful, always comedy house repairs. In memory of the times of true cartoons, which marked the youth of many generations, the legendary home-based master comes to large screens with brand new adventures. Czechoslovakia's cartoon A je to (also known as Pat & Mat) is the work of Lubomír Beneš and Vladimír Jiránek, first reproduced in 1976. This year Pat and Mat celebrate their 40th birthday. However, this is nothing like that for such a large caliber. In the attic store boxes of full movies (and a projector under the stairs) and share stories with their fans. However, as often happens, they face many traps. This time you will meet a sneaky cactus and a dry tree. Meanwhile, they will naturally "improve" their home with some creative ideas. Just how?

A poetic, but chilling story of seven puppets in train car prior to its journey to a concentration camp.

Eugene, an aging man, leads a double life - one real, the other in his dreams. He goes to see a psychoanalyst, who tries to interpret the meaning of his dreams. Eugene finds a way of entering his dream-world at will and finds out about his childhood and what really happened to his parents.

The sequel to the successful film Fimfárum by Jan Werich. Four brand new stories “for clever children and clever adults” from the popular book written by Jan Werich. Břetislav Pojar introduces the story of little Tom Thumb full of twists and adventure. Aurel Klimt brings to life three brothers, The Hunchbacks of Damascus, re-creating the atmosphere of the Middle East and variety of the oriental storytelling. Vlasta Pospíšilová’s Three Sisters and One Ring shows a rural Decameron-like manual on how to enchant one’s loved ones with a mere ring and Jan Balej lets his characters Marek and Kouba re-live an ancient fairy-tale about greed, devils and natural phenomena in his The Sea, Uncle, Why is it Salty?

A man takes up residence with a mysterious marquis and is soon persuaded to enter into an asylum for preventative therapy. Things are not what they seem, and the marquis may be even more sinister than what the young man might have predicted.

Jan Nemec, a leading filmmaker of the Czech New Wave, creates an original portrait of one of the most provocative artists of the 20th century: Toyen (Marie Cerminova). As a female artist, Toyen broke through the male-dominated art world to create paintings and drawings often erotic in nature. She co-founded the surrealist movement in her native Prague, survived the Nazis and the Communists, maintained artistic and personal relationships with artists Jindrich Heisler (whom she hid during WWII) and Jindrich Styrsky.

A visit to Prague by the most powerful man in the world coincides with Jan Němec's heart operation. He captures both events in a philosophical video diary, in doing so reporting on what is probably the most important day of his life.

Humorous as well as educational stories about magical and everyday problems, about devils, miracles, ordinary human vices and wisdom. The graphic design of the stories reflects the humour and the atmosphere of the stories Fimfárum, When the Leaves Fall from the Oak, Franta the Fearless, A Dream Come True, and Greedy Barka, that were recorded by Jan Werich on an LP in the 1960’s and published in a book called Fimfarum.

When a childless couple learn that they cannot have children, it causes great distress. To ease his wife's pain, the man finds a piece of root in the backyard and chops it and varnishes it into the shape of a child. However the woman takes the root as her baby and starts to pretend that it is real.

In the diary of a six-year-old girl, Marie, we learn what important things happened during one holiday month before she started first grade and how she perceived the changes in her family.

The film, 'The Spring Of Life', brings to light a little-known operation of the Nazi SS, started just before the outbreak of World War II. Through the careful selection and re-education of young women, it was the Nazi's mad dream to create an Aryan 'master race'.

This combined film (black and white drawings of human hands and objects) is a parable on power and the motives affecting modern society.

The puppet film Mashkin Killed Koshkin, based on the short story of the same name by Daniil Kharms, is a small, absurd story of two heroes who personify the essence of the so-called "Russian soul".

As a man waits to fall to his death, overzealous morticians stand in the way of help.

A man watches a cartoon of a cat and mouse, and cheers as the mouse scores a victory over the cat.

The film animation technique of pixilation was used in this short comedy. The notorious criminal Bloodthirsty Hugo has broken out of prison again. He is an arsonist, has no respect for old people and absolutely no maiden in the region is safe with him on the loose. In order to catch him his pursuers set a trap with irresistible bait: a lovely maiden bending over her washing by a stream...

An animation film about a clarinet and a trumpet that meet, clash, compete, compromise and harmonize.

This controversial feature blends documentary, archival footage and fiction into an elliptical narrative in which two young people in Prague, an ancient seat for the practice of alchemy, follow the trail for the mystical philosopher's stone. History and future blend as brilliant montage sequences and fanciful leaps of the imagination work to posit questions about the legacy of the past and how it influences the individual's personal freedom and responsibility.

Six Prague residents pursue bizarre rituals. Mr. Peony builds a chicken costume to wear while enacting homicidal fantasies toward neighbor Mrs. Loubalova, who does the same dressed as a dominatrix. Their mail carrier, Mrs. Malkova, inhales tiny balls of bread. Newsstand operator Mr. Kula obsessively watches the broadcasts of news anchor Mrs. Beltinska, whose husband regularly scrubs his body.

Examines the human relationship with food by showing breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

A special story about love, dance, and immortality takes place in the late 1940s. A young man, dance master Mayer, arrives at a pulmonary sanatorium. His diagnosis is serious—tuberculosis. However, he does not give in to his illness and begins to actively fight it with dance and optimism. Gradually, he wins over other patients who had previously resigned themselves to their fate. Soon, however, his illness breaks out in full force and insidiousness. Facing death, he embodies human courage and a positive attitude towards life.

A very free adaptation of Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus", Goethe's "Faust" and various other treatments of the old legend of the man who sold his soul to the devil. A nondescript man is lured by a strange map into a sinister puppet theatre, where he finds himself immersed in an indescribably weird version of the play, blending live actors, clay animation and giant puppets.

The denizens of a café communicate without words, as their sentiments are expressed as animated shapes and objects. Meanwhile, a mischievous dog sneaks around and steals people's drinks.

A group of teenagers are trying to solve a mystery of a puzzle created and left to them by the dead boy.

The full-length film which, though based on Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, is more about the complexity of the time and the world. We witness the creation of a modern production of Don Giovanni, reflecting the controversial present. Mozart's exciting music, uninhibited erotic, and the eternal struggle against evil which constitutes the energy of our existence.

In the young man's imagination, the image of a mysterious house - a mystical building that symbolizes the spiritual world of an unknown faith - persistently returns.

Little Rehor isn't allowed to play with the other boys. His only friend is the girl next door, Luci. Rehor's father is doctor on a boat and he has sent Rehor a package with butterfly larvae. When they hatch he discover a fairy who can do magic tricks.

A bust of Stalin is cut open on an operating table, leading to an elaborate animated depiction of Czech history from 1948 (the Communist takeover) to 1989 (the Velvet Revolution).

The story is a celebration of the cleverness and wit of the simple peasant Čupera, who triumphs not only over the demon of alcohol, but also over the bureaucratically persistent and thorough devil. The hell that the farmer goes through during the withdrawal process is stylized as a shantytown, a galley with a prison and a dehumanized night club.

A fairy tale story about a young shoemaker Kuba, who had to go to Vienna to fight in the army, the arrogant princely steward of Kolomayzna, the water spirits, the Emperor himself and Stázina, who looked so pretty in her red skirt.

The hero of the story is a forty-something intellectual, a sensitive composer of classical music. His exclusive profession, his work, which is actually incomprehensible to those around him, and his deep inner passion set him apart from the conformist milieu. Therefore, he tries to search for the "lark's silence" - a new strength, purity, truth, essence and roots of Czechism. However, on his return from the oppressive, alienated big city to his native village, to his former home, to nature, a deep disillusionment awaits him: he discovers that the once idyllic village has lost not only its face, but also any manifestation of spiritual life in its foolish attempt to resemble the city.

A tribe of survivors take possession of a large but rundown building, killing all who put up resistance - but they don't know that the building is cursed by some demon god and haunted by a girl in white that seems to know a dark secret.

The film tells the story of an enthusiastic young man who joins a textile factory in the late 1950s and assumes that a promising career awaits him - the protagonist is therefore constantly comparing himself to his favourite literary model, the equally ambitious Julian Sorel from Stendhal's fresco The Red and the Black. The result, however, lacks the necessary conviction, the ability to draw the viewer into his world, and remains too contrived, as the chosen period has become a mere non-committal backdrop for amorous games.

A human body gradually reconstructs itself as its various component parts crowd themselves into a small room and eventually, after much experimentation, sort out which part goes where.

A man obsessed with crossword puzzles ignores his wife's desire for intimacy

Three intertwined stories about Serbian truck driver who is involved into drug trafficking without knowing, Czech family who live by the road which makes them a lot of troubles since many cars crash into their house, and a bus full of Swedish grannies who go on a Trans-European package holiday.

When the village school master discovers the body of a mean-spirited, miserly old woman, with whom he has had a disagreement, he decides to dispose of the body himself without alerting anyone else to it, but when the body is discovered by another villager the same cycle begins again, with the body eventually passing through the hands of half of the village.

The inhabitants of Babel, from all periods of history, attempt to flee a divine flood.

Two pieces of meat fall in love.

A quiet young English girl named Alice finds herself in an alternate version of her own reality after chasing a white rabbit. She becomes surrounded by living inanimate objects and stuffed dead animals, and must find a way out of this nightmare - no matter how twisted or odd that way must be.

A satiric film travesty of Shakespeare's dramas set in the year 2000. The protagonists are to convince the audience that human passions such as love, hatred, jealousy, etc. remain unchanged even 500 years later (paralleling the up-to-date quality of Shakespeare's dramas).

A man sits down to watch a football match, which seems to consist of the players being violently mutilated in various inventive ways. The players then leave the football pitch and invade the spectator's flat.

A modern version of a classical fairy-tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a veteran who got rich thanks to a magic flint and thus he could marry a beautiful princess.

An artistic animated short showing the life in secondary school.

A cartoon in the form of a comic describes the process of development of human thought.

Jonáš, an aging comedian, wanders the restored Semafor theater lost in memories of his glory days. He finds unexpected inspiration in Melicharová, a music-loving cleaner who joins him in sketches and songs drawn from their stage show. Interwoven with archival clips from Semafor’s past productions and earlier TV projects, their collaboration sparks a poignant musical reunion.

On a lonely island, where Odysseus has to serve the nymph Calypso, he remembers his great adventures: the glorious victory over Troy; the curse of the sea god Poseidon, whose son he overpowered; the wrestling with Circe, the Lotophagi, the Sirens with their enticing death song and the battle with the bloodthirsty Scylla. Penelope, his wife, meanwhile fights against intrusive suitors who want to kill Odysseus. Athena sends him his son as a savior, who defeats Proteus, Poseidon's vassal. Odysseus is able to free himself from Calypso. Disguised as a beggar, he returns home, punishes the suitors who are after his money and is reunited with Penelope.

The film recording of the ballet performance of the State Theatre in Brno was expensively realized in a theatrically stylized set built in the Barrandov studios. The original ballet music by Václav Trojan, based on Shakespeare's fairy tale comedy, was preceded by incidental music for theatre and radio, and in particular the soundtrack to Jiří Trnka's feature-length puppet film A Midsummer Night's Dream.

A darkly brilliant stop-motion adaptation of The Pied Piper of Hamelin about a plague of rats that punish townsfolk corrupt with greed. One of the most ambitious Czech animation projects of the 1980s, notable for its unusual dark art direction, innovative animation techniques and use of a fictitious language.

Even heroes can turn into raging rioters by chance. A cartoon of a distinctive personality - author, artist and director Jaroslava Havettová.

A microbe enters the bloodstream of a young woman.

A behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of Barta’s masterpiece.

Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Salzburger composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

This animated puppet film based on Russian folk tales tells the story of the hero Svätohor and his battle with the dragon Goryn Gorynych.

A tragicomic story about Lady Poverty who, unmistakably and without any hesitation, catches one lazy fellow after another. However, she is helpless when she comes across a diligent and work-loving fellow. Poverty simply cannot be destroyed, but it can be defeated.

While the humans are away, the shoes in a cobbler's workshop engage in a number of activities, including flirting, kidnapping and a gunfight.

A little girl goes down to the basement cellar to fetch some potatoes, and finds all her hidden fears about the cellar depicted in animated form.

Animated short film based on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum" and Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's "A Torture by Hope".

Three surreal depictions of failures of communication that occur on all levels of human society.

Pieces of wood are captured by a crow and dance in celebration of spring in this animated short film.

Cartoon tennis match, with players based on Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe.

The picture, unlike the other film adaptations of the story, focuses much more on Crusoe’s life before and after his stay on the island. Following the principle of setting the novel right, it describes Crusoe’s experiences with delicate irony and understanding.

In this animated version of Edgar Allan Poe's story, a traveller arrives at the Usher mansion to find that the sibling inhabitants are living under a mysterious family curse. The brother's senses have become painfully acute, while his sister has become nearly catatonic.

Using an array of gloves in different styles and from different historical periods, the film is a short history of the cinema - from silent movies via pastiches of Buñuel and Fellini and Close Encounters of the Third Kind to a futurist junkyard where tin cans become animated police cars in a city of urban decay.

A Czech animation.

An image and music collage - a cinema concert - guided by a young sound engineer David, for whom the exhibition on E. F. Burian is an incentive to take more interest in this avant-garde artist. The film interweaves two strands - documentary and factual, drawing on contemporary material and archival images - and fictional with the story of David the sound engineer.

Wealthy but alone, a king spends his days obsessively polishing shiny objects throughout his opulent castle. After a visit from a puckish forest wizard, the king earns a blessing – or curse – that turns anything he touches to gold.

An animated exploration of the human head

A king and his three daughters must contend with the hairy wiles of the "ugly bastard" known as Omnifurous.

One of the film stories based on the old Prague legends. This one is about the old master clock maker Hanus who construed the Prague Old Town astronomical clock. Master Hanus' clock started working for the first time in 1490 but did not tell the time for too long. Soon the master, blinded by the perfidious town councilors, stopped it for more than 200 years.

A film story based on the old Prague legends. It tells about a poor student lured by wealth, which he prefers to knowledge. In the end, he sells his soul to the evil powers. The Devil takes him to hell and since then there is a blackened hole on the ceiling of a Prague house.

An adaptation of the 1764 work of the same name, the first Gothic novel. In this mockumentary, the amateur archaeologist Dr. Vozáb has set to prove that the supernatural ghost love story takes place not in Italy, but in Otranto Castle near Náchod in Czechia.

It's the holidays and a German freighter captain takes his whole family - his wife, ten-year-old Klaus and five-year-old Andrea - on a cruise to Czechoslovakia. The children have secretly smuggled Jackie the Fox Terrier aboard...

Maryša, a peasant daughter, is forced by her greedy parents to marry a rich miller, a widower with three children. But she loves the village scoundrel Franck, who has no hope against Vávra. Francek goes to the army and Maryša and Vávra go to catechism with the priest. Maryša and Vávra's marriage is unhappy. The parents also realize their mistake, especially Lízal, who offers his daughter to return home. Maryša refuses and also rejects the proposal of Franck, who has returned from the army and asks her to run away to Brno with him. She chooses a tragic solution...

Kinoautomat was the world's first interactive movie, conceived by Radúz Činčera for the Czechoslovak Pavilion at Expo '67 in Montreal. At nine points during the film the action stops, and a moderator appears on stage to ask the audience to choose between two scenes; following an audience vote, the chosen scene is played.

A non-narrative voyage round Sedlec Ossuary, which has been constructed from over 50,000 human skeletons (victims of the Black Death).

The age-old story of Don Juan, played by giant puppets.

A fable on the futility of progress for its own sake.

The king is broke, so he welcomes when a rich Spanish king asks about his daughter, Dandelion. But Dandelion does not love the king and prefers to run away from home. On the run, she meets the son of a poor moneylender, Honza, and they set out into the world together. Unfortunately, love does not save them from the princess's sad fate. Because in autumn, dandelions turn their clothes into white fluff, which the wind blows away...