Ladislav Křiváček

At the beginning was the Slovak television series Lekár umierajúceho czasu (Doctor of Dying Time), dedicated to the Rudolphine-era scientist Jan Jesenius. He ended up on the scaffold along with other gentlemen after losing the anti-Habsburg uprising. When director Miloslav Luther conceived the idea of making an abridged version of the footage for cinema, he had to not only rebuild the storyline but also dub it into Czech. However, the result was only an illustrative puzzle, describing the various stages of the hero's turbulent life.

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A young teacher is sent to a rural reform school, where he is faced with brutality of the inmates.

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Government bureaucrat Ludvik becomes suspicious after several colleagues disappear and he overhears something strange at a cocktail party. Returning home with his wife, Anna, he finds their house under surveillance and spends a fraught night worrying about his possible arrest in the morning. Marital difficulties come to light as Ludvik and his wife attempt to act normal in front of the cameras while dredging up their problems out of sight.

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The story of an ordinary family, which leaves no doubt that it is moving from the private sphere to the social landscape, to the absurdities of an era dominated by totalitarian power...

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The true story of a little boy who was taken from his grandmother's care during the war by a court decision at the request of his father and his upbringing was entrusted to the German authorities. Upbringing means Germanization. The methods used here did not even remotely resemble their noble name. Inhuman treatment and psychological and physical suffering also affected Mirko.

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Building themes, however modified, permeated the nationalised cinema throughout its existence. This time, director Július Matula has focused on a young engineer who, with high hopes, accepts a position in a famous agricultural cooperative. However, he soon discovers that behind the proclaimed phrases there is in fact hypocrisy and protectionism. The authors criticise the fact that incompetence is often covered up, that shortcomings end up being cleverly camouflaged, that the social mood favours the mediocre and the adaptable. The hauers present a statement that is courageous, so to speak, within the limits of the law, and call for increased work consciousness.

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The fairy tale tells the story of two musicians, Princess Clara and the magician Manetti. Tomáš and Jakub free the princess from the evil power of the magician's golden flute, but the magician is not about to give up so easily.

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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.

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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.

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Sixty-year-old Joska Platejz, a peculiar jack of all trades, lives in a cottage in the Giant Mountains. He cooks wonderfully for a group of woodcutters. He has brought a mountain stream to his cottage and set up a set of tanks (one of which he keeps trout in). He also has a wind turbine, a wood-burning cable car, air-conditioning in the cottage and a mannequin of a man called Albert, who scares away unknown visitors. Joska is a man who claims that it is best to be alone, yet he constantly tries not to be alone. He is friends with a gamekeeper, a teacher, he tries to get his children to visit him regularly and therefore easily succumbs to a middle-aged lady. She doesn't take long to persuade him and soon comes to his cottage. A great love seems to be born...

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Prince David loves to fence, but when he breaks a mirror in the heat of battle, the punishment falls on his maid Bela. Immediately, his father the king decides that his son must be married. But how to choose the right princess? With three tasks, which the princesses will be helped to complete by the maid Bela, disguised as a man. So it's easy to see who will get the prince as a husband.

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In a seaside village, fishermen have no catch and are starving. The bravest of them, Azmun, sets off to the land of the "sea grandfather" to help him. But the grandfather is angry because the fishermen have long since broken the agreement according to which they were supposed to throw small fish back into the sea. So Azmun is given tasks that he must complete in order to please the sea grandfather. He is helped by a magical fin and a clever girl. And Azmun promises that the fishermen will forever obey the laws of the sea and not just use it.

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An aging professor at a Prague neurological clinic is forced to confront his personal values and the harsh boundaries of medical science. Already burdened by the ultimate questions of life and death, his ethical convictions are put to the test by Víťa, a young patient with an inoperable tumor.

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Comedy about a group of village boys and in one selfless father who wants his players to do the real football.

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The hero, rushing from one misfortune to another, is former accountant Řehoř Maršíček, who after a heart attack, out of fear of death, decides to live a calm, moderate life and follow the principles of a healthy lifestyle. Not to smoke, not to drink, to exercise and eat healthily. He takes up the position of an auditor of patients and hopes that he will have peace in his new job. Instead, he experiences one nervous breakdown after another. He gradually makes one good resolution after another. Řehoř falls into unhealthy food, alcohol and women. In addition, he gradually loses most of his life's certainties, including a roof over his head. The result is a second heart attack, after which the hero promises himself again that he will fix everything and live a healthy life.

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At the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries Boleslav's kingdom fell apart in the fratricidal war between the Přemyslovci and the other clans the main profiteer of this being the German emperor. At that time it seemed as if the Czech state and the lineage of its princes was awaiting its end..." It is with these words that the tale of this film begins, whose narrative is based upon the the play by František Hrubín of the same name.

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Drama set on an isolated farm on the Czech-Polish border immediately after the end of WWII.

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A second part of a funny adventures of six years old Lucie and her two magic dolls.

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Sanitka was a Czech television, drama series, first broadcast in 1984 and eleven episodes were made. It starred Jaromír Hanzlík, Tomáš Juricka and Zlata Adamovská among others.

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A detective story set in a youth mountaineering club. One of the members, Ivan Kočička, nicknamed Kocour, single-handedly investigates the mystery of the body of an unknown man, which he discovered in a cave on top of a rock.

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Young boy Cestmir finds a magic rock which allows him to bring the seeds of the flowers which allow flying from Blue Planet...

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Saxony, devastated by the Thirty Years' War, is led by the comedy troupe of the principal Fortunato. The student Vavrinec has fled Bohemia and greatly values the text of Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet, which he has acquired on his wanderings around the world.

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In 1947 by the Beskid mountains, the traces of war still linger, destroyed tanks dispersed throughout the farmland creating an eerie backdrop. This film follows a ten-year-old boy and the strange visions he encounters, his world of fantasy exacerbated with ample time, space, and a lack of companionship or guidance. We see the adults that influence and dominate his life, for better or for worse. Surreal and packed with an excellent study of human emotions and motivations compounded by their rural, isolated vacuum of a town, this is a timeless and severely underrated film from a brilliant Czech director.

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Series about the life of Renaissance anatomist, scholar and politic Johannes Jessenius. Already legendary series today, was produced by Czechoslovak Television Bratislava, directed by Slovak director Miroslav Luther in the first half of 80's in Barrandov Studios in Prague. The story and screenplay of the series wrote Czech writer Vladimír Körner. Five-episodes epic historical narration is a biographical story of distinguished Renaissance scholar, anatomist and politic of Slovak origin, Johannes Jessenius (Ján Jesenský, 1566–1621). It displays his life from the first studies and successes. In 1594 he became professor of surgery and anatomy on Wittenberg University, which he had attended years before. From that moment, his life went through social and personal wins and losses, to the sad end on the Prague Old Town Square gallows, among 27 noblemen, knights and burgenses, after lose Bohemian Revolt in 1621. His destiny was coupled with key events of Czech history in the break of 16th and 17th century, when Renaissance and European humanism slowly fade out.

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An episodic film about the inhabitants of Kersko, their hardships and their joys, most prominently hunting. A lyrical and humorous adaptation of writings by Bohumil Hrabal.

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The honest and a bit naive director of a variety agency, Jožin Petránek, sits on the qualification committee that judges entertainers and performers of all kinds. The man firmly rejects any favouritism. But at work and at home, he's in for nothing but trouble. The rejected "artists" protest, and Jožin's wife Anna would like to promote her friend's daughter into show business. His new secretary Zuzana starts to seduce him. Petranek finally succumbs to the French chansonnier Madelaine. But Zuzana calls Mrs. Petrankova and she drives her husband away from the table and the bed. Eventually, Jozhin loses his position as director and becomes an ordinary stage recruiter. Now the real showbiz hype is just beginning for him...

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