Krátký film Praha – Studio dokumentárních filmů

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.

The age-old story of Don Juan, played by giant puppets.

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.

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.

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.

Two magicians, Mr. Schwarzwald and Mr. Edgar, try to outdo each other in performing elaborate magic tricks, leading to a violent ending.

A non-narrative voyage round Sedlec Ossuary, which has been constructed from over 50,000 human skeletons (victims of the Black Death).

A man plays the Bach piece of the title on the organ, accompanied by images of stone walls with cracks and holes that grow and shrink, intercut with images of doors and wire-meshed windows.

A festively set table with a cake indicates that an important guest is expected. Hostilet joyfully welcomes Sammy the chimpanzee, who has a holiday today. The birthday boy receives a watch, lunch and cake...

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.

It is the depths of winter and in the middle of a desolate landscape on a snowy slope stands a log cabin, inhabited by an old man. The man puts his last log into his stove and the warmth of the fire visibly delights him. He rocks his rocking chair energetically and sings merrily. The flames die away and the old man looks around for something to put on the fire. In the end he sacrifices the chair, but soon that too is burnt up. The man tears the remnants of posters from the walls, gathers various rags and throws everything into the stove. Then he takes an axe and gradually chops up the wooden walls of his house, although it is obvious that he cannot win this duel with cruel nature. The fire gradually eats up the planks and beams until the cabin entirely collapses. The man wants to get warm, and so runs around the dying flames. (https://www.filmovyprehled.cz/en/film/396670/the-log-cabin)

"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."