Jaroslav Tomsa

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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A comedy from the hotel where it all began and ended.

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Major Maisner, head of Interpol for Central Europe and neighboring Asian countries, is fulfilling his mission in Bangkok, Thailand. When he returns from his mission, he has no idea that his doppelganger, sent here by the Thai mafia, is acting on his behalf in the Czech Republic.

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A young promising Olympian, Robert, shoots two police officers in a fit of rage. Lieutenant Morton sets out on his trail with a single goal in mind: to catch the killer.

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A dramatic action film about stuntmen who perform the most dangerous stunts in the film world. One day, however, one of them is struck by a family tragedy in which his son dies. The man cannot overcome this tragedy and ends up in a psychiatric ward. Will he be able to return with the help of his friends?

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The distinctive artist, typographer, and writer Josef Váchal is known to the public primarily for his Blood Novel. The surrealistic exuberance of this defense of 19th-century pulp fiction caught the attention of Jaroslav Brabec and his colleagues, who found a corresponding image of 20th-century "trash." The authors' interest focuses primarily on the silent film era, with a journey through the history of cinema continuing through the advent of sound film to the present day (auteur cinema of the 1960s, modern horror), formally employing techniques such as tinted film. The versatile parody intertwines a colorful plot with the story of the author (Váchal/Paseky), who comments on and creates his book, and is further split in the plot into the characters of Fragonard and the Master. As with Váchal, reality increasingly enters the fiction, so that the only "happy ending" turns out to be the artist's finished work.

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A German Platoon is explored through the brutal fighting of the Battle of Stalingrad. After half of their number is wiped out and they're placed under the command of a sadistic captain, the platoon lieutenant leads his men to desert. The platoon members attempt escape from the city, now surrounded by the Soviet Army.

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The main characters left their original professions of waiter and taxi driver and rented a thriving disco Brooklyn. However, their peaceful life is disrupted by the con man Kadlec, who has not forgotten that it was they who put him behind bars two years ago. All this time, all he's been thinking about is revenge. The formerly petty crook, with the help of his accomplices, his son-in-law Buresh and fellow prisoner "The Engineer", joins the drug trade and begins his revenge. Michal is arrested for the rape of a girl he has never seen in his life, and it doesn't take much for Tomas to figure out that Kadlec is behind it all. What Tomas also doesn't realise for a long time is that the sympathetic Ivana, who has joined their business and with whom he has fallen in love, also works as a luxury prostitute and was put into the business by Kadlec.

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In the fifites the 10 year old boy Honza lives with his single mother in Prague. The mother is a dedicated communist in the beginning but she changes her mind when a show trial is held. She speaks about her dissatisfaction with the government and is immediately arrested. Honza is given to another family.

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In May 1945, a broken violinist lies drunk by a creek, haunted by memories of his life before and during WWII. Once the celebrated first violin in spa orchestras, he married Jewish nurse Róza and dreamed of fatherhood, only to face brutal anti-Jewish persecution. Relegated to second violin, he spirals into alcoholism and betrayal, while Róza and their daughter are deported. Cast out by colleagues and lovers, he descends into madness, murdering a vagrant with his violin case. In a final psychotic haze, he tends a roadside Christ statue before collapsing, his shattered life a testament to love, loss, and atrocity.

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In the film, the creative forces of personalities from three spheres of art collide. The subtitle "The Game of Love and Hate" refers to the motivation of an old Czech medieval satire, the theme belongs to Antonín Přidal, an expert on this subject. His collaboration with Juraj Herz created a collage of past and present, an updated, sharp satire and a parable about the clash of human qualities that could not but end up in the vault. The music of the Prague Selection - Michael Kocáb and Michal Pavlíček - also contributed to the film's offensive provocativeness - the film was one of the reasons for their complete move to the underground. The dancing chorus of medieval citizens resembles more of a jumble of long-haired maniacs, the edge of a contemporary dump intrudes into the space of a medieval marketplace, and the characters oscillate between the past and the present, whether in their appearance, symbolism or behaviour.

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Stage mime Antoine Moreau is compelled by the Gestapo to put on a performance for the children of Terezin, a "model" concentration camp, to convince the Red Cross observers that the camp is truly what it seems. Reluctant at first, Moreau slowly learns the true nature of the camp, including the meaning of the "transports" on which people leave. With a world-class orchestra (made up of people interned in the camp) and a cast of children, Moreau stages a show to end all shows.

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The common theme of the short story film is the famous duels between two important historical figures: Pushkin and Casanova. Pushkin's tragic duel, which ended his life prematurely, is portrayed in connection with the creation of his short story "The Dirty Shot", while Casanova's story is conceived in a rather ironic and humorous way. The point is that the famous seducer never actually seduced, on the contrary, all his life he was in a constant battle with female seductions.

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An allegory set in an archetypal Czech village, it tells the story of what happens when a series of mysterious events take place, including the disappearance of the station master. While everything has a rational explanation, collective paranoia takes over and everyone's worst instincts are unleashed. Interrogations, disenfranchisement, and the search for scapegoats ultimately lead to murder. The movie was completed in 1969, but it was banned and not released till 1990, Evald Schorm who died in 1988 never saw it completed.

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Biography of Karel Čapek.

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A smaller town has its own newspaper. The editor, Stanek, works there and is concerned with status and a comfortable life. His teenage son has his own problems and doesn't understand his father's attitude. Conventional morality without real critical passion.

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Further east of the Dark Blue Sky, where the Heavenly Horsemen fought, the story of a Czechoslovakian fighter squadron takes place, to which Second Lieutenant Jandak arrives as a rookie. He then experiences both his first love and a battle high above the clouds in the collective of combat pilots. Combat pilots on the Eastern Front thus experience similar stories to their Western colleagues, with the same goals and plans and the same slim prospects of survival in their daily life-and-death battles. Not surprisingly, they fought at a time when they had a common enemy, characterised by the Messerschmitt aircraft.

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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 1980s, a number of films were made about teenagers. At first they dealt with the confusing search for life orientation, the difficult entry into adult life - and gradually the interest shifted to delinquent youth. This film charts the conditions in a dehumanised housing estate, where youths, out of boredom, gather into gangs that wander aimlessly, humiliate passers-by, and attack the defenceless. He discovers that parents have too little time for these children, that their actions are downplayed until tragedy strikes.

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Two brothers live with their mother in an old house on the outskirts of town. They both work in a printing house. Elder Bóža is a quiet, responsible person with views determined by the Christian faith. Dan is a dude who revels in pub fun. Only after the tragic death of a person, he begins to understand that something is missing in his life.

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Once again, you can take a look behind the scenes of the Riviera Chateau on the Prague periphery, where a brothel for the socialites is hidden under the guise of an exclusive nightclub. The story takes place in 1930 and although several years have passed since the events of the first volume, the passions unleashed by the intrigues of the time have not cooled down. Once again you meet Renata, called Angel, formerly a prostitute, now the wife of the banker Justice and owner of the Riviera. The elegant Madame, who owned the business before and now works there as a mere manager, is plotting new schemes to get back everything she has...

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The top sport was also closely monitored in the communist era, and officials were naturally bothered that the pentathlon team failed to win the World Championships. But the measures that should have ensured redress were caught up in a web of behind-the-scenes machinations that backfired on the athletes themselves, their endurance and their family backgrounds. While the film has critical ambitions and wants to reveal much of what should have remained hidden from the public eye, it is a rather clumsy and schematic view, not very convincing in terms of realisation.

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A young waiter named Michal gets into trouble when he is robbed of his daily takings, which he was supposed to deliver to the bank. He's on probation, so it's clear that no one trusts him. So he asks for help from a friend, Tomáš, a taxi driver, who borrows from Adamec, a dangerous bellhop. By chance, the two friends manage to find out that his colleague Kadlec and his son-in-law, garage keeper Bures, who is a stolen car dealer, are involved in Michal's robbery. With the help of Michal's girlfriend Magda, they devise a scam to punish the extortionist boss and hand over the two seemingly blameless scoundrels Kadlec and Bures to the police with the evidence.

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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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Martin is an innocent lad from small-town Mlada Boleslav who comes to big-city Prague, hoping to exchange his krona for deutschemarks so that he can visit Germany. A local spiv named Robert obliges Martin, but at an unfair exchange rate. When Martin finds out he was rooked, he plans revenge on Robert ... but then decides to join Robert's gang instead.

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While Kendy returns to his hometown as an assistant director to film a thirteen-part series with a television crew, Štěpán Šafránek, equipped with his mother's advice after graduation, takes up his first position - as an intern at the local hospital. However, his inadaptability to local conditions and his sense of ethics in his chosen profession do not suit his other established colleagues. While they are amused by his zeal and responsibility, Štěpán has increasing problems with his superiors, until he is finally transferred to the position of rural district doctor, which everyone rejects. In Bezdíkov, however, he meets a new, perhaps permanent and reciprocated love, with whom he eventually decides to live and work in northern Bohemia.

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The movie is a satirical look at foreign occupation - a medieval Czech jester entertains a German king and his French wife, or a modern Czech villager helps a Bavarian hunter and his French wife find wild boar in Bohemia - the story switches back and forth between the two plots and time-periods.

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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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An elderly tailor strangles young women with a black stocking. Inspired by a true crime.

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Even the best of friends can fall apart, often all it takes is a minor misunderstanding. That's exactly what happened to two village friends, children finishing elementary school, between whom hostility and suspicion suddenly set in. The mosaic-like plot contains a number of humorous observations, but overall it distances itself from any ambition to deeply affect the mentality of adolescents, much less the countryside.

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A Czech film about love and marital crisis as a work injury.

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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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The year is 1936, the nervous atmosphere of the Nazi threat penetrates into the sport. Upgrade boxe Vilda Jakub will compete with German Kurt Schaller. The Nazis decisions are used in order to win his master even the dirtiest means. Vilda inspect their game and focus on the preparation of environmental events. The story culminates in the victory of one of the two lovers, between which Vilda tense moments in the decision.

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Antony is obsessed with the idea of a happy family life, but his young daughter has to be cared for by the parents of his wife, who died in a car accident. Unfortunately, Martha, whom Antony has somewhat recklessly married, has a fundamentally different vision of her future than he does.

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Viktor Průcha, a successful small-town architect, lives well but knows his comfort rests on compromises. When an elderly man—whose granddaughter was hurt at a school Viktor approved beside a busy road—attacks him and then takes his own life, Viktor abandons his home for a rural studio. There he rediscovers nude photography; his acclaimed exhibition forces him to confront past concessions and choose his future.

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