Antonín Máša

An epic exploration of the Czechoslovak New Wave cinema of the 1960s and 70s, structured around a series of conversations with one of its most acclaimed exponents - Closely Observed Trains director Jiří Menzel.

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Television series Golden Sixties examines new insights into Czech and Slovak cinema of the 1960s and the role of the Czechoslovak New Wave. Each episode focuses on a different filmmaker.

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Screenwriter Antonín Máša wrote a television production Zurvalec based on Turgenev's short story. It is a psychological drama about the conflicting encounter between Lieutenant Kister and the dangerous duelant Captain Luchkov, who drives away the boredom of an empty life in a backwater province with a series of violent acts. The tense relationship between the two men, expressing a contradiction of creative tolerance and aggression, is exacerbated by their interest in a woman who succumbs to admiration for the "predator" Luchkov. The tragic confrontation of different approaches to life raises the question of the possibilities of defending human decency over evil.

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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.

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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.

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Bohouš Burda, a forty-year-old idealist disillusioned with city life and his failing marriage, abandons it all to run a mobile dental clinic in the mountains. He meets Terezka, who shares his yearning for a simpler existence, but even in remote nature they must confront unforeseen challenges.

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The Mráz family is preparing for holidays. Parents are traveling to the spa and little Petr is going to the country to his grandparents. In addition, to the chaotic preparations, mother's friend is bringing a dog Blek. She wants Petr to look after it. Grandfather welcomes Petr and the dog with pleasure because he needs the ally against strict grandmother. Grandfather is not very skillful and thus grandmother often experiences troubles with his ideas.

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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.

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Young script-writer Frantisek (Petr Cepek) is hired to write a film script based on the successful novel Looking Back. He meets with the novel's female author, a University professor and writer named Olga Machová (Jirina Trebická), approximately ten-years-older than him. In the beginning, they do not understand each other at all. Frantisek is a skeptic experiencing a moral crisis, unsatisfied with both his work and his private life - he lives separated from his wife and has no deeper feelings for his numerous lovers. He even gets drunk from time to time and breaks the public peace. Olga is lonesome, too, but considers her life fulfilled.

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A gifted poet checks into a Gothic hotel in hopes of meeting the woman with whom he has long been enamored. He is surrounded by a variety of offbeat characters like the hefty homosexual cook, shadowy clerks, snooty waiters, and valets prone to violence. He finally meets the woman of his dreams only to lose her and ultimately meet with tragedy.

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Story about the people around the circus and the unfortunate love of a young man an acrobat. Before the dispute escalates so much that, according to the old clown, Vincek ends up with a noose on his back and Lotyš in a bass, fate intervenes and the young acrobat is called up to the war, where he serves with the dragoons. After serving his time and being released into civilian life, he sets out to find the National with his beloved Nina. However, she has not been with the circus for almost a whole year. Her parents took her away and Vincek, to the chagrin of his friends and the principal, decides to go looking for her. After a long journey, he finds his beloved in the Russian Kuznecki circus, but she has changed a lot during the years of separation. A simple girl in love has turned into a calculating, ambitious woman who desires money above all. But Vincek doesn't have you.

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Michal's father and his friends are stigmatized by their war experience and the post-war social deformations in which they took part either directly, or watched them cowardly and in silence. They are trying to repress their feelings of guilt and justify their behavior to the young generation with memories of their heroic war feats. Michal, however, does not want to have anything to do with their problems. He subconsciously perceives the unpleasant atmosphere in the family as well as his father's hypocrisy. After one of many quarrels with his father, he runs away from home, determined to go his own way.

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A passionate communist worker is discouraged by the changing political climate and the failure of his peers to live up to his ideals.

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A film in five episodes, all based on an attempt to show the life of young people today, their feelings and relationships, their behaviour in public and private life.

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Three separate short stories by Jan Drda from the collection The Dumb Barricade: The Dynamite Watchman, Hatred and Traces.

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