Jan Budař

An early 20th-century sultan is introduced to the cinematograph with the help of a former operator for the Lumiere brothers.

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Soulmates Eric and Shelly are brutally murdered when the demons of her dark past catch up with them. Given the chance to save his true love by sacrificing himself, Eric sets out to seek merciless revenge on their killers, traversing the worlds of the living and the dead to put the wrong things right.

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What is the meaning of life? What is love, humor, fear and death? Is it all just a dream? Who are we and where are we heading? Will we wake up, will we remember?

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What was supposed to be a joyful celebration over the dissolution of Czechoslovakia turns chaotic when the Varchal family discovers that their father betrayed both country and family by working for the secret police. The family members turn against each other.

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Prince Louis Ottomar Charles XII, born Noble, is very close to his loving mother, Queen Ludmilla. However, Prince Louis is already a bit too old, he is 39 years old. He's afraid of almost everything, doesn't want to get married, and spends most of his life hanging around the sumptuous castle and adjacent fields. The wise King Radomil therefore prepares an unexpected gift for him - the prince wakes up one morning in the forest in ordinary clothes and, accompanied by the rough knight Hudroval, he is to go out into the world to learn what life is all about and perhaps finally grow up. On his great journey of adventure, he will encounter things he has only read about in books. He will meet a powerful wizard, evil witches, a ghost, and the Lady Death herself... and maybe even find the love of his life. What will Mummy say about all this? And will Father King be happy?

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The story of fifteenth century Czech icon and warlord, Jan Zizka, who defeated armies of the Teutonic Order and the Holy Roman Empire.

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A well-known writer now aged 75 is aware of his increasing age and the risk that his literary style will grow worn. His everyday existence is enlivened by characters from his stories, who tend to enter reality in unexpected ways, at various stages of completeness and with all kinds of strange demands.

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Biopic of Bozena Nemcová, a famous Czech 19th century writer and feminist, focused on her complicated on-off relationship with her husband Josef Nemec.

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In 1946 Berlin, an American cop searches for his missing brother while helping a novice German policewoman fight the violent crimes engulfing the city.

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The devil's magic quill keeps a tight record of sins. But when this precious artifact is stolen, a demon must find a way to make things right again.

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On 26 September 1928, Karel Capek and President T.G. Masaryk meet in the gardens of Topolcianky castle to decide about the fate of their joint literary work. Their fiction film dialogue is based on quotes from a future book and their mutual correspondence, considerably freeing the original format of literary conversation from binding conventions. Capek and Masaryk reproach and offend each other, but they also ask key personal questions and questions about the social functions of a writer and politician respectively. "It's a film about two extraordinary men; it's about the fact that emotions can be sometimes more powerful than ideas even in such exceptional people.

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The Dung Beetle is late, the Parasite is asleep and Mrs Larva is more interested in her knitting than the director’s instructions. It’s clear: this amateur theatre company has a long way to go before they can perform their version of "The Insect Play", a famous satirical work from 1922 by the brothers Karel and Josef Čapek which features insects with decidedly human traits: greed, egocentrism, jealousy.

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The young Maria Theresia sees her life clearly in front of her: she will marry Franz Stephan of Lorraine and start a family of many with him. Even if Franz Stephan is not quite sure of his luck and her father, Emperor Charles VI, and his powerful advisor Prince Eugene of Savoy forge quite different plans for them. It looks quite as if the young archduchess must sacrifice her happiness to the cause of the state

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Life is not easy for Laika, a dog on the outskirts of a big Russian city. She is caught and forcibly retrained to become a pioneer in astronautics. Soon after her lift-off into space, a number of animals follow that are hurriedly launched from Houston and Baikonur. The animals travel astray, but finally manage, with the help of a black hole, to colonize a faraway planet. After a short period of harmonious, undisturbed co-existence with indigenous life forms, however, first human cosmonaut run ashore on their planet, and their harmonious life, indeed their very survival, are suddenly in jeopardy.

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Linda and Vanda, two good-looking women in their thirties, are inseparable friends and co-owners of a small bookstore in the city center. Linda is divorced, educated and practical, has a little daughter and a sense of responsibility. Vanda, on the contrary, is single and free, attracting men as a magnet, but none of them is able to keep up with her spontaneity. Edo, shy, sensitive, and introverted gay working with them in the bookstore, longs for love for ages too. The lives of this trio get finally tangled by several men, while everything turns up differently than any of them had expected.

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The story of the dramatic fate of the Czech climber Josef speck and his comrades, executed by the Nazis in April 1945 in Theresienstadt.

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The story is about a plumber, who is called Good man from the bones. He is not afraid of any work, he manages all the work he gets. Wittily responds to every situation that befalls him.

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In December 1941, Czech soldiers Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš parachute into their occupied homeland to assassinate Nazi officer Reinhard Heydrich.

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MURDEROUS TALES is a special effect animated feature film combining live actors with 3D/2D animation, puppets and back projection. It contains three stories: Antonio Cacto, Lighthouse and The Big Man, plus three ultra-short films called Charge the Dragon. Each episode uses different production technology and is in a different genre, but both their form and their content are related. All the episodes are about double standards and the topics of heroism and death. Something very small meets something very big (a tiny knight meets a huge dragon, an old Mexican goblin meets a man, a tiny Professor meets real-life cows, two mobsters meet the Big Man). All these meetings result in the heroic death of the small principal characters. Each script sees heroism and death differently.

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The congenial Vojta is bashful and his family is batty. His short-tempered father, who once failed to swim the English Channel, wants him to be a competing swimmer and his loving mother, a former child ice revue star, sees a talented pianist in her son. But Vojta has completely different priorities - most of all his red-haired classmate Ela, an enchanting synchronized swimmer who is leaving for Paris in November. If Vojta doesn't do something radical, and fast, Ela will disappear behind the Iron Curtain forever. The year is 1989.

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The film's main theme is obsession. An obsession with love, with art, originality, copying, with success, money and... with oneself. Sooner or later, if we lose our rational upper hand over it and let ourselves be dragged down by it, every obsession leads to destruction. But it is only when being dragged down, in spite of all the cuts and bruises, that we find a unique DELIGHT, if only for a few short moments - and what else is life really about? It is like a drug. What at first seems to be weak and trivial is capable of expanding and growing into a serious problem that can appear to be absolutely incomprehensible and absurd to those who have never experienced anything like it.

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Czech Century brings the key moments of the history of the Czech nation from 1918 to 1989.

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The film tells about a small museum, where the economic boom has not yet arrived. It appears as if time has stopped in this national museum, a museum which should serve as a show window for Slovakia. Stuffed animals are covered with dust and the three employees working as caretakers of the huge building look like the museum exhibits themselves.

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An comedy set in 1960s Helsinki. The story revolves around Elsa, a resolute hatmaker who is in complete control of her life. Besides running her shop, she sometimes doubles as a fortune teller. When Jan, a Czechoslovakian jazz musician and Elsa's old lover comes to town to perform at a "peace and friendship festival", her well-organised life is jolted out of balance.

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Based on real characters and events, this haunting drama focuses on the personal sacrifice of a Prague history student, Jan Palach, who set himself on fire in protest against the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1969. Dagmar Burešová, a young female lawyer, became part of his legacy by defending Jan's family in a trial against the communist government, a regime which tried to dishonour Palach’s sacrifice, a heroic action for the freedom of Czechoslovakia.

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This fairy tale, full of humor and suspense, begins in a small town where preparations are underway for a theatrical performance. The play tells a local legend about enormous riches hidden deep underground. Many long to find them, but those who set out in search of them never return. The play features two sisters, Kačenka and Barborka, as well as Jakub, a musician and Barborka's jealous boyfriend. The theme of the play also attracts the miserly lord of the castle, Bořivoj Hájek z Hájku, who arrives with his brother Ignác, an eccentric inventor and researcher. And somewhere underground, near the real treasure, sit his three ghostly guards, passing the time by inventing all sorts of pastimes, which the Lord of the Underground does not enjoy at all. His patience will run out the moment the bored guards interfere with human destinies, because of a bet on how the love between Jakub and Barbora will turn out.

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A short story film presenting four micro-stories of Prague residents and visitors: Panorama, The Lawyer, The Ordinary Timetable, The Secret of the Monument.

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“The fact that I’m playing myself doesn’t mean that it’s me.” Four old schoolmates, today well-known Czech actors (Pavel Liška, Tomáš Matonoha, Josef Polášek and Marek Daniel), decide to make a movie together. Their ambitious colleague Jan Budař takes up directing duties and financing has arrived from Poland. What started out pleasantly enough, however, soon goes awry. Liška’s pronunciation difficulties, Daniel’s alter ego Havlát, and Matonoha’s financial machinations turn the shoot into a fight for survival. More than just a film about friendship and the absurdity of actors’ lives, director Marek Najbrt gives us a witty meditation on reality and illusion, and a unique take on the reality film genre. One of Pavel Liška’s on-set comments (“I didn’t know if I should act as if I were acting, or act as if I weren’t acting, or just not act at all”) illustrates the provocative nature of Najbrt’s subversive, quasi-documentary game.

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