Jiří Menzel

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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80-year-old Ali Ungar comes across a book by a former SS officer describing his wartime activities in Slovakia. He realises his parents were executed by him. He sets out to take revenge but finds instead his 70-year-old son, Georg, a retired teacher. Georg, who had avoided his father all his life, decides to find out more about him and offers Ali to be his interpreter.

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The miniseries explores the possibilities and ways of behavior in non-verbal communication, primarily movements, gestures and ways of expression, but also the causes and roots of their origin. The series also explores the most interesting changes in the development of different cultures, including tattooing, scarring and body painting. Series also deal with the language of deaf and blind people, different universal languages, laughter, whistling and other peripheral phenomena associated with non-verbal communication. It also answers the questions does politicians think what they say, do suspects lie to the police or the court and how their body language reveals them.

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Documentary feature about Czech director Jiří Menzel, featuring Menzel himself as well as Miloš Forman, Emir Kusturica, István Szabó and others.

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The film tells the life story of its director, Jan Nemec, one of the most known and important filmmakers of Czech New Wave.

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Two young technicians, Filos and Kája, come to a small village that is a bit cut off from the rest of the world in order to find the best place to install a new station for the reception of a cell phone signal. Their arrival understandably arouses a feeling of expectation among the locals, especially when they learn of the interesting financial reward for the owner of the land on which the transmitter will stand. A fight flares up in the village over this reward, and all weapons, those permitted and those not, are put into use. Of course, there is also the question of whether Filos and Kája will be able to live up to the expectations that have been placed on them. Maybe they aren't even who they claim to be...

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"A man is immortal as long as he lives in the memory of others,” said well-known Czech writer Arnošt Lustig with a wry smile. In December 2006 when her father turned 80, filmmaker Eva Lustigová began to see just how closely his words applied to himself personally. Her method involved recording their meetings and personal interviews together, until Lustig’s death in February 2011. Employing his notorious sense of humor, the film presents the world-renowned author as he recalls a carefree childhood cut short by the Nazi occupation, the horror of life in a concentration camp, the beginnings of his writing career, living in Israel and the USA, and his lifelong friendship with Ota Pavel. Geneva-based Eva Lustigová’s documentary is not a traditional portrait compilation of a famous writer that chronologically investigates his life, but rather a loosely assembled, lively movie about a person with an eternal love for life as it is.

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An idiosyncratic reflection on the film Larks on a String and its history, shot by it's director Jiri Menzel.

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Set in Czechoslovakia, the drama follows the lives of its characters against the backdrop of real historical events that shape their personal stories. To evoke period atmosphere, the series intersperses authentic clips from vintage Czechoslovak film newsreels, using their original commentaries or newly recorded historical voice-overs by Vladimír Fišer. A narrator, initially voiced by Vojtěch Kotek and later by Matěj Hádek, provides continuity and reflection, guiding viewers through changing times. Under the guidance of screenwriter Rudolf Merkner, each episode’s script weaves family and individual dramas into key moments of Czech and Slovak history: political shifts, cultural trends, and social transformations from the 1960s onward.

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Operation Danube was the cover name for the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact armies in August 1968. The fleet of Polish tanks which arrive to liberate their neighbor, ostensibly threatened by a counter-revolution, includes the old tank nicknamed Ladybird, which is the last to leave the barracks.

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After many years, Anka Lomnická, a former countess and emigrant, arrives in Prague. By chance, she finds herself seated next to two characters from a crime story that gradually unfolds around Bubeník, a former guard of political prisoners. With her spontaneity, Anka meets old and new faces, one of whom is Věra, the granddaughter of the former administrator of the Lomnický castle, and her boyfriend, a young detective named Přemek. When Bubeník is found shot dead with a gun in his hand, Přemek is not convinced it was suicide and begins to uncover the past not only of the dead man, but also of his potential father-in-law and his friends, former political prisoners. Gradually, a whole series of people appear whom the ruthless Bubeník hurt in his lifetime...

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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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Jirka, Roman, and Ivan have been friends since school. Today they are about 35 and, although they went into different fields, their friendship has lasted. Each of the three friends hides a secret, and their lives change radically when the secrets come out. How will the three friends stand up to the tests they are forced to face? Will their friendship survive?

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Kateřina works at an inn run by her evil stepmother. One day, she meets a young man she doesn't know in the forest. He is Prince Jan, and he is surprised when he sees his fairy from the forest at the inn. He sees how the innkeeper treats the girl and promises her that he will come back for her. The stepmother is frightened and has the girl thrown into a ravine. Kateřina is saved by Jan's soldiers, but the stepmother...

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Jiří Suchý recalls two of the most prominent artistic and creative figures in Czechoslovak culture of the last century: Jiří Voskovec and Jan Werich.

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This film is a documentary-style look at the life of the beloved Czech actor, Zdeněk Svěrák.

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Ivan, in his early forties, returns, after many years of absence to his native town - a typical Middle - European small town in Northern of Croatia. His roaming through Europe left him in a rather distraught state and he is now in search for his identity and peace of mind. As a child of five, he was, literary taken from his birth-place and now - bereft of his parents and family, he will try to solve the puzzling event of his childhood. Thus, in this place where so many unusual things have happened which may have had an influence on the dramatic destiny his family has suffered, he turns attention to himself by to his personal investigation. The town is, however, threatened by the river which already has sunk a good part of the cemetery. Along this threat an unexpected plot, in the genre of a film noir, thriller and horror - a certain «fantasy of soul», develops.

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The love story of students Jana and Tomáš begins in Prague just after the establishment of the First Republic. Their impulsive "escape to Buda" marks not only the liberation of the dissatisfied Jana from her monotonous life with her mentally unstable mother, but also the beginning of their fateful marriage. They settle in the picturesque Slovak foothills, on the sprawling estate of Tomáš's vital father, with whom Jana strikes up a deep friendship. Soon, however, she is visibly affected by Tomáš's surprising transformation. The marital crisis is deepened by the unstoppable decline of the estate. The family's efforts to establish itself in Vienna, which after the collapse of the monarchy is only a memory of its former glory, also fail. Jan's enterprising brother-in-law lends a helping hand. The return to prosperous Prague is their last chance, but it brings something different to everyone...

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The story of a family that is forced to flee the ČSSR in 1969 and seeks a new home in Germany.

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Told from the perspective of man reflecting on his childhood in Prague in the early years of World War II and the eventual destruction of his family as the Nazis rise to power. The storyline focuses heavily on Jewish-Czech Silberstein family members. Drama was filmed on the real events as a tribute to Mr. Nicholas Winton, the British humanitarian who organized the rescue of 669 children, most of them Jewish, from Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War in an operation later known as the Czech Kindertransport from German-occupied Czechoslovakia and likely death in the Holocaust.

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Hospoda is a Czech television comedy series which premiered on TV Nova. From 1996 to 1997, 52 episodes were aired.

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A celebrated theatre director’s perfect life unravels when his wife’s secret lover exposes the hollowness beneath his success, leading to a calm divorce and his isolation in a luxurious but empty villa with his nearly grown daughter. His attempts to fill the void through a high-end escort only delay the real crisis, when he cannot accept his daughter’s first great love.

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An elderly paper-crusher branded a fool in Prague secretly stashes condemned books, preserving their contents and extrapolating from them eccentric scenarios of wit.

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A fairy tale of three brothers who try to save a princess kidnapped by an evil wizard.

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Prague 1994, hotbed of international profiteers. Here you can still find buyers for discarded everyday objects, here you can still buy cheap houses - provided you can find a Czech straw man. Joint venture, a rogue comedy in which everyone believes they are smarter than the other and everyone hopes to win their dirty game at the other's expense.

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A film about the uncertainties faced by a man in post-Communist Slovakia, his relationship with a teenage son and English teacher girlfriend who's soon to return home to England.

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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.

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An opera troupe in a small town decides to perform Mozart's Don Giovanni. The view behind the scenes uncovers the world of opera without the glitter. A tale of love and disappointment, about music and passionate love-making and about people that live their lives in spite of the opera.

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Prague, Czechoslovakia, during the inter-war period. Jan Dítě, a young and clever waiter who wants to become a millionaire, comes to the conclusion that to achieve his ambitious goal he must be diligent, listen and observe as much as he can, be always discreet and use what he learns to his own advantage; but the turbulent tides of history will continually stand in his way.

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Collection of short films the summaries of which include; a foreign man moving to Italy, getting married and having a child; a four split scene short involving plot-less images of old people with television sets for heads, a beautiful woman having sex, and overall confusion; and an old man reminiscing over his youth.

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Unlike any other opera, the so-called Beggar's Opera is not just one composition, but a lineage of adapted compositions, beginning with the original hugely successful 1728 political satire written by Englishman John Gay. Composers and writers have penned variations on it ever since. The most famous of these was A Threepenny Opera by Bertholt Brecht and Kurt Weill. Some things these compositions share in common is their setting among the poor and criminal classes, and the roguish character Macheath. This production is based on an adaptation of Gay's original by Vaclav Havel the freedom-fighter, writer and philosopher who became the first (and only) president of the united post-communist country of Czechoslovakia, and it retains many traces of its theatrical origins. Film reviewers were not too tolerant of what they called "slavish adherence" to the noted Czech writer's stage production, but theater, philosophy and history buffs may feel otherwise.

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Czechoslovakia 1918. The newly formed National Assembly has made Stoklasa the administrator of the Kratochvile Castle. Although with no aristocratic background, he is a man of fortune and is trying to buy the castle. To impress his neighbors and the local politicians he invites them to a great hunting party. Uninvited comes a man who claims to be Duke Alexej. Stoklasa believes him to be a hustler. This hustler, however, manages to charm all the women before he leaves.

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In post-WWII Communist Czechoslovakia, several characters considered bourgeois are sentenced to work in a junkyard for rehabilitation. Among them is a young man who pines for a female convict.

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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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Francin, manager of a small-town brewery, has a charming wife whose abundant blonde locks are an adornment to the town. Maryska looks ethereal but loves meat and beer, while Francin is an ascetic. The strict members of the brewery board of directors come to audit the accounts, but are diverted from concentrating on Francin's detailed reports by Maryska, who has organized a pig-killing feast and is ably assisting the butcher. When she invites the old curmudgeons on the board to enjoy the fresh pork, they are too happy to agree. Francin doesn't know whether he is going to get a permanent contract. To make things worse his brother Pepin - eccentric, noisy and garrulous - turns up on an indefinite visit.

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Returning home to Prague, the magician Pasparte, an owner of a circus caravan, meets his dying colleague who entrusts his beautiful daughter Aloisie to his care. In Prague they all take up their lodgings at the house At Blue Fish in which they intend to arrange the programs. The firm is owned by widow Evzenie with whom Pasparte shares flat and bed. Evzenie is jealous of Aloisie therefore Pasparte sends Aloisie as a housewife to the single man Jakub Kolenatý who earns his living by photographing and wants to record the revived pictures of Prague. Pasparte wants to found in Prague the first permanent Czech movie theatre in which there would be projected also the original Czech films.

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When he returns to Prague from a stint in the Army, Lada does not seem to fit in anywhere, and he cannot get the hang of the system of deliberately underperforming on the job. His girlfriend tries to keep him in the city with a variety of stratagems, but he eventually takes a job as a truck driver on a dam-building project. He uses the truck to visit his girl on weekends. Ingenuous, he is unaware that the truck is being used for black-market smuggling, and that his girlfriend two-times on him when he cannot arrange to leave on time for his weekend.

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The theft of a pearl necklace and subsequent murder took place at the Tartaros cabaret. All this could compromise the minister, who is an admirer of the singer Clara. The real culprits must be found as soon as possible...

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Middle-aged Antonin and his friends, the major, now retired, and the canon, are in the river, swimming and philosophizing. Then it starts to rain. It just seems to be that sort of summer. Antonin runs the swimming bath with his portly wife Katherine... A man appears with his horse-drawn caravan. He lays a striped pole across the river and walks over. With a handstand and a magic trick, Ernie the Conjuror invites everyone to that evening's performance... Ernie is a tightrope walker of only modest skill, but with a slim and beautiful assistant, Anna. Antonin speaks to her. The two spend the night in the change room by the river, Antonin massaging her feet all night long. Katherine decides to move into the caravan with Ernie. But now the major and even the canon sense Anna's attractiveness...

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At a village railway station in occupied Czechoslovakia, a bumbling dispatcher’s apprentice longs to liberate himself from his virginity. Oblivious to the war and the resistance that surrounds him, this young man embarks on a journey of sexual awakening and self-discovery, encountering a universe of frustration, eroticism, and adventure within his sleepy backwater depot.

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Three short story omnibus. The main hero and connecting link is Lieutenant Boruvka, created by Lubomír Lipsky. He deals with the murder case between climbers, the death of the dancer in the music theater and the strange disappearance of the mathematics professor.

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A quintet of vignettes based on short stories by Bohumil Hrabal: an eventful trip to the motorcycle races results in drunkenness, long-winded discussions, and death; two elderly men create false biographies; insurance agents visit an eccentric painter/goat farmer and his mother; guests at a wedding reception remain oblivious to outlying misery; and a working-class boy romances a Roma girl.

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On a sunny afternoon an old man speaks to a laundress about his love for Provence, then a black flag is unfurled outside the town monument: news has arrived over the radio that the famous composer Foerster, born in the town, has just died.

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A student work by Jiří Menzel, filmed during his second year at the FAMU film school. Views of old Prague and its tenement buildings, symbolizing the obsolete past, alternate with shots of construction sites for new prefabricated apartment buildings. In spite of certain unavoidable propagandistic overtones added by the director, it is notable as the beginning of his search for a “dramaturgy of colors.”

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