Jaroslav Heyduk

Dr. Štěpán, dismissed for his outspokenness, returns to his hometown determined not to bend his ethical principles to the ruthless new capitalism surrounding him. When he meets a young woman who may become the meaning of his life, he must confront the tension between his ideals and the demands of a changing world.

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Jazz musician and trumpeter Beno is originally Slovak, but has been living in Prague for a long time. As a true bohemian, he does not recognize any limitations in his personal or artistic life. He is devoted to jazz with body and soul and despises any form of pop music. That is why he rejects the lucrative offers of his girlfriend, the successful singer Gábina. He also successfully faces the pressure of his much younger girlfriend-to-be and her defiant mother. Beno often has to pay for his tricks, but he accepts this with open eyes. Beno is ably supported by his friend, saxophonist Emil, known as Rampouch.

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Matylda, who lives in the Czech countryside, is trying to arrange burial plans for her dying husband, Jan. While Matylda hopes to have a funeral for Jan in the small town where they once lived, there are complications. Years earlier, Jan spoke out against the Communist government and was consequently expelled from the town. When Matylda fails to convince a local politician to allow the ceremony, she uses her husband's funeral as a public show of dissent.

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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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The film is a concert of well-known actors from an alcohol rehab where a middle-aged man has taken refuge to get rid of his addiction. In the rehab, cruelty is personified by the attendant who, with sadistic satisfaction, hands out demerit points for the slightest sign of displeasure or rebellion.

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A striking generational tragicomedy, A Hoof Here, a Hoof There is a caustic group portrait of pals who enjoy a tipple, all kinds of hi-jinks and no-strings sexual adventures. Auditor Pepe, vet Dědek and restaurant manager František are financially secure and enjoy life with their similarly fun-loving girlfriends—at least until the moment when the brash Pepe collapses and ends up in hospital.

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In the second half of the 1980s, so-called critical films began to emerge, but they were afraid to make a sharper statement, moving on the basis of an engaged morality that wanted to improve the existing conditions cosmetically at best. The theme of the search for a new anchor in life becomes a central element: the protagonist, after returning from the war, does not want to devote himself to the constraints of elite sports, he rejects the dubious business of a friend. Most of all, he would be attracted to a perfectly ordinary job in a bakery. The dance clip inserts, however, make it difficult to navigate the already rather confusing narrative.

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The forest worker František Hrubý, a poor, hard-working man, lives with his granddaughter in a lonely cottage. Despite being in his sixties, he is still a furiant who does not let anyone talk to him, but talks to everyone himself. His desire to interfere in the lives of his companion, daughter, granddaughter or friends is rooted in his fear of loneliness and death. He also can't accept that the work he has loved all his life has become too much of a strain...

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A family purchases a home robot designed to look like a grandmum. Their neighbours immediately buy a more expensivve model as the two families always try to up the other one. Both grandmums start to "terorize" their families because they were set up to ensure the mums exercise, the kids study etc. Apart from that they start causing problems to the other family ... cut ropes with hanging clothes, pierced tires, etc. Once they get to killing each other family's pets the parents get really worried about the safety of their kids. The grannys later destroy each other while fighting and the families decide that they'll be better off without any robots. (It's some time since I saw this so the details may be off.) Mainly thanks to the design of the robots it's rather a comedy than a horror. Unless you are ten. And a rather good comedy!

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A Czech psychological film about the school of life, its sorrows and beauties. The main character is a young aspiring nurse Marie Sahulová, who, after a trouble in the hospital - she secretly brought a boy to her boarding school - is transferred to a rural health centre, where together with an old doctor and a peculiar nurse she has to travel around twenty-five villages and a number of solitudes in the harsh environment of the neglected villages of the 1950s. The nurse, a wise and experienced woman whom no one calls anything other than "babi", becomes her guide, who introduces her to the practice and the pitfalls of private life in a distinctive way. In the mosaic of everyday worries and more or less serious medical interventions, Marie matures and finds the meaning of her work and life.

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This satirical comedy depicts the fate of two con artists who constantly encounter sharper and more experienced rivals. In their quest for easy profits, they often change several jobs and come up with a variety of original tricks and thievery. Each time, however, someone else profits from their ideas. And when they seek revenge on their crooked rivals, they end up back where they started - behind bars...

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A story about young girl Hanka who doesn't have parents and is forced to spend most of her time in a hospital bed.

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Even under socialism, which proclaimed the equality of all people, there were status differences. A young bricklayer, who has fallen in love with a college girl from a "better" family, feels this first-hand - the girl's petty bourgeois parents are fundamentally opposed to an unequal relationship from their point of view. In protest, the young lovers decide to live in a tent for the time being and go straight to the park. The surprisingly clueless director Ladislav Rychman has tried to merge disco songs with a tame satire on modern-day rich people.

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This fairy tale tells of a magical hen who lays golden eggs. When an enterprising taxi driver (greedy, of course) learns of such a miracle, he immediately realizes that he could easily and effortlessly get rich if he could get such a hen...

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To the intolerant and bloody-minded Prague actor Bergner (Milos Kopecký) is the lead in Moliere's Misanthrope which he is studying now as tailor-made. On top of that he is malicious and he advises to the new actress Helenka (Dagmar Havlová) in such a way that she upsets the theatre director. If Bergner accuses somebody of a mischief and he is wrong, he never apologizes. When he almost crashes an older elegant lady by his car on the zebra crossing, instead of an apology he calls her an old ballet dancer... But in Brno's TV he takes part in a discussion on manners and he gives himself as an example of good manners and grace. In the train he meets a magic old man (Ladislav Pesek) who warns him and admonishes him to change his behavior. After he arrives to Prague the old man's threat comes true.

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The heroes of this absurd comedy, full of confusion and humor are Dzharda Zemanek and Frantisek Liska.

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After their young daughter dies suddenly from a viral infection, Marie and Petr struggle to cope with the silence and emptiness left in their apartment. The couple drifts apart as Marie sinks into deep isolation while Petr attempts to distract himself through work and social interactions. Eventually, they decide to try for another child in an effort to move forward and rebuild their fractured relationship.

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Three short stories ("Zelenáči 1945", "Silvestr 1948" and "Zimní vítr 1951") about members of the SNB units guarding the Šumava border in the post-war years. Ivo Toman had artistic supervision over the debutants. The theme of the third short story was made in 1959 for the film "Entry Forbidden" by František Vláčil, who was also starting at the time.

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The little mermaid rescues a prince from drowning and falls in love with him. To be with him, she makes a deal with the evil sorceress: her beautiful voice against a life on land.

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Thirty Cases of Major Zeman is a Czechoslovak action-drama television show intended as a political propaganda to support the official attitude of the communist party. The series were filmed in the 1970s. Each episode encompasses one year, and investigations are stylized to that year. Most are inspired by real cases. The series follows the life of police investigator Jan Zeman during his career from 1945 to 1975.

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An only son, Jirí Valenta (Jaromír Hanzlík), has been drafted to the army. At the barracks he acquires the nickname Seamstress because he sews rugs in his spare time. One day, his friend introduces him to Julka Vávrová (Jorga Kotrbová), a girl he is desperate to get rid of. The naive Jirí falls in love with the girl and accepts her invitation to spend Easter together in the country. There he learns that the girl is the single mother of the young boy Martínek, whose father is the married tractor driver.

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Blazenka likes to imagine she is on a desolate island and has to find a way how to survive. After the death of her mother she stays together with her baby brother and has to take care of the family. In this difficult situation, she plays this role-game that helps her to deal with the sudden loss of her mother.

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The last winter of the Second World War in the Beskids. To escape the bombing, eight-year-old Dagmar is taken by her mother from Prague to a mountain village. From there, they take the narrow-gauge railroad to school...

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The invincible agent Cyril Juan Borguette alias W4C has been assigned a mission to go to a hotel in Prague, get hold of a saltcellar with a plan for the military exploitation of Venus hidden in it, and hand it over to the beautiful agent Alice. He will have to compete for the saltcellar with other agents working for the world's various greater and smaller powers. The head of the Prague counter-intelligence unit gets news of agent W4C's mission. Deficient in personnel, he nominates accountant Foustka as agent 13B. Mr Foustka takes his dog Pajda with him and the two head for the airport. Pajda helps him track down agent W4C in a classy hotel that becomes the battleground for the interests and plans of the secret agents from different countries, each trying to get hold of the precious saltcellar.

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A lyrical story about first love, death and disappointment, based on a poem of the same title.

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Inspector Brumpby (Jaroslav Marvan) and the young crime reporter Allan Pinkerton (Vít Olmer) attend wedding of Sir Hannibal Morris (Oldrich Nový) with beautiful Clarence (Kveta Fialová). After the ceremony, Clarence's ex-husband, criminal Manuel Diaz (Waldemar Matuska), who was believed dead, shows up in her room. He wants to get his hands on Clarence and, most importantly, on the money she would inherit in the eventuality of her new husband's death. Diaz makes attempts on Hannibal's life. He knows his way about an underground labyrinth in the château and the traps he sets up for Hannibal seem to work, since Hannibal is apparently found dead after an explosion in the labyrinth, after which his body vanishes. The inspector tries to solve the countless mysteries. In this, he is joined by Allan, always ahead of the man of the law in his estimation and judgment of the situation.

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This castle has its own ghost - a mysterious White lady. She emerges from the painting on the wall when someone speaks out magic formula. White lady is good ghost, she can make someone's wishes true. Even if it is a new duct. But a miracle is not the thing that Communist leaders want in the town.

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Ostrava - Kunčice , 1953: on the same day as the manifestation funeral for J. V. Stalin, the funeral of Brigadier Bédi Nevěřil, a tragic victim of the bureaucratic cadre machine... The story unfolds in the memoirs of another brigadier, former journalist Karel Kratochvil.

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A satire about small and large crooks who thrive in a planned economy. They made great use of all its strengths and weaknesses.

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Songs about eternal love, American vagabonds, cowboys and desperadoes, with the romance of railways and trains speeding into the distance are recorded as film songs, and so, for example, in the well-known standard Franck and Johnny you will see M. Kopecký, J. Jirásková, J. Lír and others singing. In Chajda drnový, W. Matuška and K. Štědrý, K. Gott rides a horse or sails on a boat and R. Cortéz cries (off-screen) over the death of the famous robber Jesse James...

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A group of saboteurs search for a weapons cache hidden by the Nazi army. Beskydy in the summer of 1950: the StB agent Borek infiltrates a group of saboteurs hidden in the Beskydy mountains. They are preparing terrorist actions against the ongoing collectivisation in the village. The group is led by Ervín Kopal and Metud Hanák. Borek is to make contact with them, secure the saboteurs and discover a weapons depot. After many dramatic events, the task is accomplished, but at the highest cost...

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At the end of the 1950s, some filmmakers attempted to escape the ideological dictates by turning to psychological drama. We watch as an aging, uptight, strict woman who has come to inspect a regional publishing house literally blossoms and snows. A few days of comfort and happiness, however, are capped by a bitter epiphany: the man who had so charmed her has indeed embezzled the money entrusted to him.

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