Václav Babka

This production of Ostrava TV Studios was inspired by actual events which occurred in the Ostrava region of Moravia during the 1920s and 1930s. A hedonistic bon vivant of a lawyer named Zajícek (played by Václav Postránecký) came up with a sophisticated finance speculation scheme which exceeded the bounds of law. When discovered it became one of the most closely-followed First Republic scandals.

Many children live in a poor cottage, the oldest of whom is Ondra. The cottage can no longer support them all, so the father sends his son out into the world to learn a trade. On his journey, Ondra meets an old man, to whom he offers his last bun. The mysterious old man advises him on which path to take and also gives the boy a gift. On his journey, Ondra meets many people and proves his cleverness in each encounter. When he arrives in the city, he looks around the shops and thinks about which trade he could learn. He chooses a goldsmith. He is accepted and is so skilled that his master allows him to make jewelry for the princess, with whom Ondra falls in love. The princess is mute, but clever Ondra is sure to find a way to deal with that.

In May 1945, a broken violinist lies drunk by a creek, haunted by memories of his life before and during WWII. Once the celebrated first violin in spa orchestras, he married Jewish nurse Róza and dreamed of fatherhood, only to face brutal anti-Jewish persecution. Relegated to second violin, he spirals into alcoholism and betrayal, while Róza and their daughter are deported. Cast out by colleagues and lovers, he descends into madness, murdering a vagrant with his violin case. In a final psychotic haze, he tends a roadside Christ statue before collapsing, his shattered life a testament to love, loss, and atrocity.

The theatre director encounters the disinterest and irresponsibility of the acting troupe, whose members are scheming and looking for side income. The tired and sick artist wants to finish his work at any cost.

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.

Caesar is the name of the dog with which a little boy, only seven years old, sets out on a great quest to find his mother. She once gave him the dog before she emigrated. The boy does not agree with his father's intentions to remarry, even though the new mother is supposed to be a sympathetic governess from a children's sanatorium. The film was made at the very end of the former regime, but it was not released until the changed political situation.

An allegory set in an archetypal Czech village, it tells the story of what happens when a series of mysterious events take place, including the disappearance of the station master. While everything has a rational explanation, collective paranoia takes over and everyone's worst instincts are unleashed. Interrogations, disenfranchisement, and the search for scapegoats ultimately lead to murder. The movie was completed in 1969, but it was banned and not released till 1990, Evald Schorm who died in 1988 never saw it completed.

A parable for the end of totalitarianism. Three protagonists - a high official, a secretary, and a border guard - representative of three generations (1948, 1968, 1988) are forced to confront their ideals and places in society through the events of one strange night.

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.

Biography of Karel Čapek.

A dramatic story about the devastation of the environment and human character.

The drama called I Love, You Love was made in 1980 but because of the absurd ideological ban, the film entered cinemas nine years later. Pišta is an unmarried man who works at a freight wagon which carries letters and parcels. Alcohol helps him to overcome his handicap of being short and not good-looking. He wishes he had a woman, but the woman he really wants, ageing Viera who reloads the cargoes, has a soft spot for another man. So, Pišta has nobody and nothing, except for senile mother who sometimes fails to recognize him. The film received Silver Bear for Best Director at the International Film Festival in Berlin.

Princess Julia doesn't want to marry an old prince Hubert so she runs away from home. She meets two old magicians and join the circus, where she meets lovely Franta Kuldan and evil devil performer.

The film tells the exciting life of the great Czech composer Leos Janácek (1854-1928), also known by the thick silver hair that crowned his head and his strong character, which could overcome the adversities of fate.

Even the best of friends can fall apart, often all it takes is a minor misunderstanding. That's exactly what happened to two village friends, children finishing elementary school, between whom hostility and suspicion suddenly set in. The mosaic-like plot contains a number of humorous observations, but overall it distances itself from any ambition to deeply affect the mentality of adolescents, much less the countryside.

A story of Jan Kolvara, forty years old architect, who is a little bit too obsessed with women in his life.

A funny movie about life and adventures of the five inseparable friends from little town in south Czech republic.

Criminal comedy, a third movie from the "Chief" series.

This tale is about young Ludvik (Robert Nespor) an erstwhile, budding scientist whose practical sense leads him to experiment before his common sense has figured out the results. Due to that unfortunate pattern, he variously floods the bathroom while working on displacement of volume and weight in water, he shatters the harvest pumpkins but not the law of gravity, and now he is eyeing the neighbor's rabbits for an electricity experiment. While the rabbits remain safe for awhile, Ludvik's parents wish he would follow in their more traditional footsteps and dedicate himself to music. Instead, Ludvik has learned that the proper mixture of a certain carbide and water can be explosive, and while he works on that technique, a friend tips off the physics teacher about these potentially disastrous plans.

Premature motherhood causes serious emotional and psychological problems; the young mother, deceived in her first, still naive love, thinks that she has not yet enjoyed anything and already has to take care of the baby. Even finishing high school becomes a big problem, which requires a lot of self-sacrifice.

In a South Moravian wine-growing village in the early 1970s lives an old man who cannot accept the attitude of the younger generation towards nature and agriculture. Director Hynek Bočan made a number of films based on Jan Kostrhun's drafts, mostly set in the South Moravian environment (including The Face Behind the Glass), but the portraits were very flat. Relationships between people were often depicted in predictable schemes. The hero this time is an old villager who is struggling to cope with the changes in his attitude to nature and to agricultural work in general. He sees his only hope in his grandson, to whom he tries to pass on his life experience.

The peculiar Fanoš Mikulecký is the originator of many well-known songs from Podluží, generally considered folk songs. Next to him, the other main protagonist of the story is Honza, a musician and an uneducated journalism student. On one of his journeys he meets his former professor. He suggests that together they visit one of those who compose folk songs but do not claim authorship, Fanoš Mikulecký. With him, Honza understands the meaning of artistic creation and the fulfilment of human life...

Alienation between the closest relatives is always a serious disorder of family judgment. Father and son not only do not see each other, but one does not even recognize the other when they meet by chance. No wonder, since the father has been in prison for a long time and his son was raised by a former family friend after his mother's death...

Two somewhat crazy friends Milan (Milan Lasica) and Julo (Július Satinský) resolve to have a peaceful holiday in an old guard house that Julo has bought from his uncle. But in the early hours of the very first morning they are woken up by the loud sound of a trumpet. It is the severe supervisor of a nearby recreation center forcing the children out of their beds and out to exercise drill. To protect themselves from the children, Milan and Julo put up signs saying "private property". The first to disturb their privacy is the supervisor's little granddaughter Miluska, who uses their shed as her gingerbread house. The children in the camp are disgruntled, the supervisor's program bores them, and so they make up all sorts of other things to do.

A film about a young sanitation worker who tries to prevent the pollution of a river, but pays the price...

Even a casual hitchhiker can get caught up in unexpected family troubles. The skilled title character fixes a broken-down car and is rewarded: he is invited to a luxurious cottage. However, its owner finds himself in a difficult situation when, in addition to his wife, his mistress arrives there - the hitchhiker is therefore asked to pass off the girl as his girlfriend...

Ondrej lives on a farm outside a small town with his family. One day a group of men arrive at the family's house and the harmonious life they've led so far changes drastically for the worse.

Wartime events from a child's perspective were a popular theme during the previous regime - here it is a twelve-year-old village boy who experiences dangerous situations with retreating Nazi troops in picturesque South Bohemia... Any attempt to achieve a more believable depiction is destroyed by the staging's grandeur, and in the end the result is an awkward piece, suitable at most for celebrating the relevant national holidays. A longer copy with a tragic ending is stored in the NFA. Milda is shot unnoticed by an SS major.

The reason for making this film is clear: it was to cover up Vojtěch Jasný's famous chronicle "All the Good Natives", an account of the tragic consequences of forced collectivisation. The pro-regime director Antonín Kachlík also focuses on the socialisation of the Moravian village, accompanied by mistakes and coercion, but in his optimistic view he emphasises the hopeful prospects leading to a happy future. Although the united village lands were born in pain, they will serve for the benefit of all the working people... As with Jasný, Radek Brzobohatý embodies the stubborn peasant, who is only slowly acknowledging the benefits of communal farming. However, unlike the poetic exuberance and pithiness of Jasný's chronicle, here we encounter a vicious posturing.

A story of love and honor that takes place during the mid-nineteenth century during revolutions, as well as economic, political, and social hypocrisy. Two extraordinary but lonely artists share a passionate love, as evidenced by the preserved letters that they exchanged.

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.

Jakub, a dreamer and budding magician, juggles between parcels and services rendered to the villagers. His eyes cross that of the beautiful gypsy Jolanka. Together, they will try to live a first and big love, despite the pressure of their respective communities.

The holidays of Vince Adamek, a student of the agricultural school in his native village in South Moravia, are purely working. He likes his job as a zootechnician so much that he seems to turn down an assistant position at the university...

The economic crisis in the early 1930s also affected the inhabitants of the distinctive Moravian-Slovak countryside. The protagonist and his family returned to their native cottage from the city because he could not find work anywhere. But his younger brother does not welcome him with open arms...

Two hilarious short stories set in the milieu of apprentice youth, depicting the amorous travails of teenage boys. In the first story, "The Sorrows of the Devil's Apprentice", we see a talkative storekeeper who is constantly advising his charges on how they should behave, unaware that one of the young men has fallen in love with his daughter. Overcoming shyness is also depicted in the second of the stories, entitled "May I Beg, Helen?"

A British citizen by the name of George Reiner (Jirí Sovák) arrives at Prague airport. He was once a Czech safe-breaker, and has now returned home after thirty years to steal twenty-dollar gold coins still kept in the safe at a private villa in Pilsen whose owner fled to the West.

Lieutenant VB, disguised as a laborer, is looking for a young woman killer among the staff of a wheel loader. But which of the possible motives found is the right one?

Humorous adventures of children in the village.

Sixth-grade pupil Katka daydreams during a math class about being Snow White and being freed by a prince who looks very much like Dzery from the eighth grade. Katka, her girl friends Lenka and Martina, and her fellow-pupils Franta, Joska and freckled Vrabcák, have spent five years going to the same little one-class school in their home mountain village of Pastvina. Their kind teacher Smetácek was very understanding about their games and fantasies, but he didn't teach them much about arithmetic. They are now laughed at for their ignorance by the strict Bidlo, their new teacher at the near-by little town. As he does every year, Smetácek is preparing a theatre performance with the local children. Katka suggests the fairytale about Snow White

The first short story "Naked in the Thorns" tells the story of a man whose clothes were taken away by a dog during his bath in the river. In the second short story "Games of Love", a retired professor paints a biblical scene of Susan and the old man. In the last short story, "Fidelity", the dog Argos perishes while defending his beloved master.

A story of Pepik, an orphaned boy recently adopted by foster family.

Sliding, skiing, snow forts, snowball fights, in short, winter is the right season for the children from the village under the Šibeničák hill to have fun. Their leader has always been Zrzek, the son of the local undertaker. But then Myšák, whose father had become the chairman of the agricultural cooperative, moved into the village, and he pulled all the boys to his side, especially because he could take the boys on the horses his father sometimes lent him. Proud Zrzek left the group rather than submit to Myshak. Only his friend Barbora remained faithful to him, helping him catch birds, especially the proverbial black raven.

Eleven-year old Mísa has the temperament of a proper boy and endless problems with the grown-ups. It is no wonder that he longs to become an adult without further delay. Mísa keeps house together with his father and has various duties. After a failed attempt at dish-washing he goes off to the research institute where his father is working on an important invention. He is trying to produce a substance that would make poultry and other animals bigger and thus help the struggle against famine in the world, but so far he has only managed to produce a shrinking substance. After his father leaves the laboratory, Mísa mixes up different ingredients and makes the growth substance. He drinks it and instantly becomes an adult. His father, conversely, turns into a toddler after drinking the shrinking substance with his beer by mistake.

A twelve-year-old boy knows that adults often lie—and this realization causes him no end of trouble. When he stumbles upon the suspicious death of an old man, he begins to weave a web of suspicion.

The lives of 7 friends in a small Czech town from 1945 to some time after 1958.

Tanya, a 10-year-old Russian tourist traveling with her parents from Prague to Brno, is left behind in a foreign country. Tanya leaves her compartment when the train stops because of a cow. Disobeying her parent's instructions, she gets off the train to investigate, lingers too long, and is left behind. Cold, lonely, and clad only in her pajamas in the unfamiliar countryside, the girl is relieved to meet up with two rather nervous Czech boys camping out together for the first time. At first the would-be "cowboys" are frightened by her ghost-like appearance. After hearing her story, the boys find Tanya a dress to wear and accompany the girl on foot to her final destination, Brno.

Five young people take off in a lighter-than-air machine at the Prague Centennial Exhibition. A live-action/animated film based loosely on Jules Verne's novels Two Years' Vacation and The Mysterious Island. The film in Art Nouveau style consists of live-action scenes, generally shot in black and white, as well as hand-drawn, stop-motion, and cutout animation. Various live-action and animated elements are often composited into the same scene.

A smiling holiday story about an old car named Cleopatra and its four-member, all-male crew...

Young couple Eva and Jarda Tům face housing shortages just as Eva miraculously gives birth to quintuplets, drawing intense media and state attention. Authorities install them in a high-tech villa monitored by a commission led by Drahoslav Svitáček. As intrusive experiments, constant scrutiny, and malfunctioning gadgets strain their family life, a planned railway project momentarily frees them. Eva conceives again, but when only one baby arrives amid fading public interest, the state and the spotlight move on.

While old Oliva tells a group of children about his life as a sailor and how he met Diana and her cat with sunglasses, a strange circus arrives in town.

An adventurous letter that wandered around the world instead of rushing to a summer camp to see its little recipient.

Farmers get away from their arguments by embarking on a religious pilgrimage, enjoy a picnic en route, and on their return decide to form a cooperative.

Telling the prisoners of a death camp. Boxer Tony Majer, who got into a concentration camp for a fight with the Gestapo, remembers the murderous work in quarries, on the cruel torture of the Nazis and prison solidarity that helped him survive.

A poignant overview of how short life can be, this interesting drama from Czech director Vojetch Jasny is divided into four separate segments. In the first skit, a young child's impressions are observed as his newborn baby sister becomes a part of the family. In the second, a young woman falls in love for the first time one summer, and in the third, a tough, older peasant woman battles against the farming cooperatives. Finally, in the last segment, everything comes full circle as a woman who is about to become a grandmother dies while her daughter-in-law has not yet given birth.

As the world progresses into the industrial age, a professor studying the "nature of pure matter" is spirited away by a would-be dictator and connived into building a super-bomb, as a young reporter and a girl rescued from the sea attempt to warn him of their mutual kidnapper's intentions to dominate the world with a new and more-deadly-yet weapon.