XC
The age-old story of Don Juan, played by giant puppets.
Jan 1969
May 1960
An eight-part animated portrait of various species, accompanied by a different style of music. The various parts are: Aquatilia (foxtrot), Hexapoda (bolero), Pisces (blues), Reptilia (tarantella), Aves (tango), Mammalia (minuet), Simiae (polka) and Homo (waltz). Each animation mixes drawings, pictures, real animals and animated skeletons.
Sep 1967
Two magicians, Mr. Schwarzwald and Mr. Edgar, try to outdo each other in performing elaborate magic tricks, leading to a violent ending.
Sep 1964
A non-narrative voyage round Sedlec Ossuary, which has been constructed from over 50,000 human skeletons (victims of the Black Death).
Jan 1970
Jun 1986
Oct 1964
Documentary about old age.
Dec 1978
Jan 1964
"A refined film essay about the loneliness, wisdom and humility of old women. The film, most valued by Jan Špáta, was awarded the Grand Prize at the International Short Film Festival in Oberhausen, the Trilobit Award and Special Mention at the IFF in Karlovy Vary."
Aug 1968
Jan 1972
A Song is a documentary etude on youth, made in the spirit of cinéma vérité. The film employs observational methods to examine popular leisure activities of the Czechoslovak youth in the 1960s, from going outdoors through various sporting activities to musical practices.
Jan 1963
Frank visits his friend Josef, who introduces him to his pedigree rabbits and his wife Mary. Frank is more interested in the slightly unsettling fact that Josef and Mary's garden fence is entirely made up of living people holding hands.
Dec 1968
Jan 1960
A leading director of the Czech film renaissance provides a philosophical meditation on life and death, set amidst complex hospital apparatus and the sadness, hope, or resignation of the patients. Existentialist rather than optimist, the approach is one of humanistic atheism, accepting death as part of life. Interviews with doctors and nurses explore their outlook; all speak of death as a fact, without either sentimentality or religiosity. The studied objectivity of the film only imperfectly hides an intense emotionality.
Apr 1966
Documentary showing the Czechoslovakian political landscape in March 1968, when president Antonin Novotny, a hardline Stalinist, stepped down and moderate communist Ludvik Svoboda was elected. Five months later, in August 68, the Prague Spring would end with the military intervention of the Warsaw Pact.
Nov 1968
The life and struggle of the Lower Sorbian poet Mina Witkojc - her uncompromising stand against the war, her expulsion from her homeland and her welcome to the Soviet liberators.
Aug 1985
Oct 1969
Feb 1968