Jan Schmidt

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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Nineteen-year-old Pavel Kříž spends all his free time in Prague's arcades, bistros and discos with a group of thieves called Roby. Pavel has a high school diploma, but works as a window cleaner, and a large part of his income comes from the scams, scams and thefts of Roby's crew, to whom he supplies guaranteed tips. So he's not too happy when the cleaning manager assigns him a young temp, Jana Hálková. Although the girl makes no secret of her distaste for Pavel's way of life, a fragile emotional bond develops between them. But this cannot last in the environment in which Pavel moves. The young man gets into more and more trouble - part of Roby's party is caught by the police and he cannot find the money to pay back the debt. The situation escalates when a group of thieves kidnap Jana...

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Saxony, devastated by the Thirty Years' War, is led by the comedy troupe of the principal Fortunato. The student Vavrinec has fled Bohemia and greatly values the text of Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet, which he has acquired on his wanderings around the world.

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The distressing fate of the Czech great Jan Amos Komenský, forced to leave his homeland after the White Mountain disaster. It depicts his encounters with various European personalities of the 17th century - the Queen of Sweden, artists and scientists. It emphasises the hero's nobility, but also his inner resilience, which allowed him to overcome many personal and professional tragedies. The parable of The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart becomes part of the story. However, Comenius's concept is sculpturally lifeless and, in particular, the religious dimension is "erased" from it. The simplistic biography therefore does not avoid schoolboyish dryness.

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In a veterinary research institute, its workers are trying to deal with the sudden appearance of rabies. However, the work problem grows into a personal issue for each of them, especially for MVDr. Eva Krausová. Up until this point, Eva had lived the most ordinary life. A single mother in her forties, employed at the institute in a job that had already become routine; one day a week spent with a boyfriend – without any claim to any shared perspective; short holidays with a family in the countryside with a child, who is looked after by Eva's mother during the year. A woman who has not made it very far. Until one day, chance presents her with an opportunity that she has subconsciously been waiting for since her youth and forgotten about for years. But now, at forty?

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Young teenager Bo is too sensitive for the hothouse atmosphere of a boarding school run by a cold, unfeeling would-be man of the cloth. Lonely and scared, he finds a soulmate in the headmaster's son Kim with whom he forms a bond of friendship... that slowly grows into something more.

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When a man stops at a motel one evening in 1961, his tormenting behavior drives one of the people present at the motel to remember his experiences in a concentration camp during WWII.

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People in Czechoslovakia perceive the events of February 1948 differently. This movie tells how they behave depending on their views, beliefs and character.

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A film about filmmaking.

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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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Lying in the construction industry used to be a criminal offence, but skilful people could do a lot of things. This somewhat embarrassing tragicomedy convinces us that even builders should be honest. The protagonist here is a moral designer who occasionally drops in to sing to enjoy something other than work.

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Captain Exner solves another detective mystery - this time while he's on vacation. The most elegant of Czech crime novelists has chosen a quiet town called Opolná as his place of well-deserved rest. But just as he arrives, the local shoemaker Rambousek, a famous (and wealthy) naive painter, is murdered.

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Rock concerts used to be suspicious. They were supposed to attract all sorts of strange individuals who meant no good. In this case, it's a pair of escaped convicts who want to hide in the heat of the concert...

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Set in a vagabond and petty bourgeois environment, the three stories deal with the pitfalls of love, the petty and insidious betrayals of trust.

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Horn tries to forget the insult caused to his beloved and builds a hut on an island inhabited by a small colony recently founded by the now drunken adventurer Lanfier. Having built the house and restored peace, Horn doesn't know whether to encourage the interest of local beauty Esther... His Majesty Random unexpectedly confronts the hero with a choice: forget the past and start anew, or return and take revenge on the guilty party for his humiliation - which will he choose?

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A troupe of young women on post-apocalyptic earth are lead around by a mistress born before the war, eventually stumbling into the company of a lonely old man.

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The story is about Harold, an isolated figure in an overwhelming world of totalitarian bureaucracy. Harold tries to find the elusive Joseph Kilian, an old acquaintance, in Prague. When Harold stumbles across a state-run cat-lending store, he impulsively rents a feline for the day. Later, he attempts to return the cat and finds that the store no longer exists. Now with a furry companion, Harold continues his search for Kilian. Written and directed by Pavel Juracek, this 40 minute film effectively aims its allegorical shots at personality cults and the absurdities of a totalitarian regime.

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Jan Schmidt and Pavel Juráček turn their attention to the problem of Czechoslovakia's unloved cars in this whimsical documentary short.

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