Studio Beep

Three almost middle-aged men decide to open up a pizzeria in the neighbourhood of Šiška in Ljubljana.

What do you do when love simply isn’t on the cards and keeps passing you by? 60-year-old Kristýna has lost her last ray of hope, so she goes off with her daughter Sára to talk to a fortune-teller about her sorry lot in life. One year on from Mirrors in the Dark, Šimon Holý brings us another wholly independent film about life’s traumas as seen from a female perspective, this time with a liberal dose of esoterica on top.

Young talented Elizabeth leaves a successful career in ballet for love. The man who has stolen her heart, however, has a dark side, and in a single moment Elizabeth loses everything dear to her in life.

What happens in the mountains, stay in the mountains. Giant Mountains are truly the spice of local highlanders who live here, whether any season. Skier with one leg, the legendary womanizer adorned with infertility, the bartender with a penchant for divination... And Pavka, the oldest living member of a traditional cross-country Bulán family.

35-year-old Eliska has a wedding and is waiting for her big moment. Instead of his "yes", the groom says "no" and runs away from the altar. Fortunately, overwhelmed Eliska has a great friend with a clear recipe for what needs to be done. She herself alternates boys as socks and therefore immediately bases her profile on a dating site. She doesn't like it very much, but she is middle-aged, she's single and she's afraid the train won't miss her. And she wants to take life more firmly in her hands. She therefore throws herself into a blind date and tries to find new love between a series of catastrophic meetings. At the same time, she has to move quickly and the only option is to live with her half-brother, a weirdo who grows bees on the roof and who does not want her at home.

When the West Coast Crew dance troupe, led by the talented and ambitious Buddy, is selected to enter the widely broadcast “Superdance” reality TV talent show, the young dancers revel in their newfound fame and dream of their lives as winners of the prestigious contest. But as the competition begins to heat up – especially from rival dance troupe Muertas – jealousy, narcissism and interpersonal conflict threaten to break the crew apart.

The life of a young man (Jan Cina) is defined by order and modern technology; the closest he gets to any form of real communication is when he sprays his pet snail with water in its terrarium. But then the most common of all household appliances ceases to function and the man has to go out and be among people. In her short piece set in a familiar future, director Tereza Vejvodová conceivably builds on the aesthetics of her sculptural film accompanying the production Land of Body at Prague’s National Theatre. Intertwining limbs and torsos are extensions of the silent protagonist’s mind; his world is polished down to complete emptiness. What's the point of us having control of our every step if no-one else accompanies us on our walk?

Two siblings set sail as a crew on a yacht on the Aegean Sea. Circumstances soon change when a young documentary filmmaker comes aboard.

Three young actresses go to the Karlovy Vary Film Festival together. The successful Adéla will present her new film. The burnt-out Ema goes to support Adéla. And carefree Soňa just wants to enjoy movies and parties. But the days at the festival don't go as expected and the three women's friendships and careers are put to the test. Can they still manage to outwardly act like they're happy and at ease? Šimon Holý's comedy shows the harsh truths about the film industry and the acting profession. It describes authenticity as a goal that is hard to achieve.

When Ivan Simonovis becomes the first and most famous political prisoner in Venezuela, a 15-year period of imprisonment leaves devastating effects on his and his family’s lives. Living in exile as a filmmaker, his son Ivan Andrés crafts a very personal and moving story, using over 25 years of unique family material, showing history from an angle never seen before. A family that had to overcome extreme hardship, a father that has to find his place in life again and a son that faces his traumas by inviting the viewer into the core of a wound that touched both his family and his entire country.

A family of five lives together in an old village house. While the parents are slowly aging, the children are growing up, and it is clear that they will soon go their own way. This unchanging rhythm of everyday life is disrupted by the unexpected news of the mother’s pregnancy, and the idea of a new sibling gradually affects all members of the household. March to May is an understated, intimate portrait of family togetherness, which is often expressed in the smallest of ways. An unassuming yet highly original story, filmed with the same tenderness and patience with which nature awakens every spring. Vojtěch Kočárník (kviff.com)

At the 1982 Cannes Film Festival, Wim Wenders invited several of his esteemed colleagues to a hotel room, where he filmed their reflections on the future of film. This exclusive documentary survey, Room 666, inspired two Czech producers to engage in a similar undertaking in collaboration with the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. During last year’s festival, they thus invited around thirty Czech or Czech-based filmmakers from all generations and asked them “what makes Czech film Czech?” The result is an exciting mosaic not just of views and opinions, but also of mannerisms and personalities.

First documentary about the Czech hip hop scene shows how close the Czech rap can come to humour and irony. Three protagonists of the film, James Cole, Hugo Toxxx and Orion appear in situations where they are confronted with a professor of linguistics, children of a Romany quarter, a strict birth registry clerk, classical music trio, a statute of national revival hero Josef Jungmann, and the chanson singer Hana Hegerova, with whom they have a chance to sing the national anthem: "mimino mi mele nohu máma mele maso a máma mele sele kde domov můj?"