XC
Two good friends return from long-term military service: Jan Cimbura from Semic and Josef Piksa from Putim. Piksa farms on his own, Cimbura accepts service with the Hradiště farmer and mayor of Kovanda. The farmhand Cimbura is a real treasure for the farm. He is strong and hardworking, he doesn't drink or smoke. He can keep his eyes on the girl Marjánka, and Cimbura likes her too. However, Cimbura doesn't want to and cannot marry. First, he wants to become independent, and that may take years....
Nov 1941
A highly romanticized autobiographical novel by a Czech 19th century writer, Bozena Nemcova. It's a classical, compulsory reading in Czech schools, about a wise, working-class woman, happier in her simplicity and good heart than the nobles whom she serves.
Nov 1940
Theater props maker Karel Vajgant has a young wife, Magda, and two children, seven-year-old Pavlík and eleven-year-old Pepička. Magda is a caring mother, but she feels that her husband prioritizes work and his comfort. In a weak moment, Magda becomes unfaithful. Vajgant receives an anonymous letter that warns him of his wife's infidelity. His friend, the opportunist Tonda, advises him to throw away the letter and instead devote more time to Magda...
Dec 1941
The families of Vavruš Cagala and Cyril Hanulík live in a secluded area in the Beskydy Mountains. Vavruš and Cyril are hardworking woodcutters and foremen. Cagala's daughter Terezka likes Tomáš Hanulík, but she also likes Pavel Zgabaj, the son of the owner of the farms in the valley. Cyril Hanulík is jealous of his Heva and wrongly suspects her of infidelity. Francek, whom Heva loved before their marriage, takes revenge on the Hanulíks: he sets fire to their apiary, from which he seizes Cagala's hayloft. Since then, misfortune has befallen the Cagala family. They lose their horses and wood, and old Zgabaj demands the money he lent them. He is only willing to back down from his demands if Terezka marries his son. Cagala does not want to allow her daughter to sacrifice herself, so the girl secretly goes to the farm to work there as a helper on the farm...
Oct 1944
Marta Dekasová works as a governess in a garrison town. The beautiful girl is the center of attention of many men, but she only desires Lieutenant Varga, who is married and rejects her. Desperate, Marta throws herself into the arms of the most intrusive of her suitors, and is then dismissed in disgrace. She goes to Prague to live with her friend Kiki, becomes a bar singer, and continues her journey down the sloping surface. Hope for a new life dawns on her when a young student falls in love with her, but just then Varga appears in the bar and rekindles her unquenched feelings...
Oct 1941
The owner of a fashion factory, Rafael Klučina, is desperately looking for an imaginative advertising campaign that would attract the public and raise the profile of his business. However, the head of his advertising department, Filip Muška, seems unable to come up with one. In the end, they are helped by the model Boženka Smolíková and her talent for perfect disguises and masks. The unusual advertising campaign involves Boženka traveling around the country for fourteen days in model clothes, and whoever recognizes her will win a prize of fifty thousand crowns...
Aug 1938
Apr 1939
Mrs. Piskořová, co-owner of a debt-ridden boarding house, forces her daughter Klára to marry a wealthy elderly architect, Kacík, who has recently separated from his wife. However, Klára is in love with the waiter Prokop, who she does not know is actually a mining engineer. No one suspects that Klára's land, considered worthless, contains a coal deposit...
Aug 1940
A comedy about a caring protector of the family who had help, good advice and understanding for everyone. No one in the family calls Anna Svojanovská anything other than Kvočna - everyone is used to running under her protective wings as soon as any problems arise. And what a blessing this mother and grandmother has to deal with!
Sep 1937
Oct 1939
A village shop owner is convinced by his children to move to Prague, where they say he'll be able to enjoy a fine retirement in a modern furnished apartment. Bored by life in Prague with nothing to do, the old man takes to helping a young widow in her stationery shop.
Feb 1943
Josef Houbička, the owner of the U pěti veverek apartment building in Malostran, is a kind and forgiving good man who allows himself to be ruthlessly oppressed by his proud wife, Filoména, and secretly fixes her problems with the tenants. He lends rent money to two poor painters and bribes offended maids just to keep the house quiet. He would like to restore the old soap factory in the house, but Filoména promotes more profitable garages. And since neither of them wants to back down, Houbička eventually leaves the house after one of the arguments. He makes friends with the innkeeper Pulec, who runs the not-so-prosperous inn At the Leaky Jug...
Feb 1944
The famous operetta singer Jarmila Kšírová tries to hide her marital status from the sensationalist public. The heroine of the story is the star of the big operetta scene Soňa Jansová. For advertising reasons, it is claimed that she is still single and that she even avoids men. In reality, however, the operetta soubrette has been happily married to Dr. Karel Svoboda for several years and even has a four-year-old daughter, Evička. Her husband pretends to be only her legal representative and only sneaks into her apartment secretly...
Rudolf Bartoš, the owner of a farm, quarry and factory, is extremely rich, however, he is unapproachable and irritable, and the dread of his employees. One day he falls down a steep slope by a river and hurts himself. The quarryman Fábera finds him groaning in pain and takes him to his cottage.
A morally questionable lord comes to the aid of a working class man who is to be executed for speaking out about thieving rich scoundrels sticking it to the poor.
Sep 1938
Thirteen people have gathered at Mayor Bartoš's. The company is uneasy about this number and therefore warmly welcomes the fourteenth guest, who is the new librarian Pavel Čtrnáctý...
Sep 1943
In the garden of Hojtaš's estate, local dignitaries gather to watch a theatrical performance starring the author of the play, Dr. Pavel Chvojka, the landowner's granddaughter Olga, and Lenka, her ward. Lenka is intoxicated by the theater and Pavel, but he prefers the more experienced Olga. Lenka runs away to Prague to become a real actress. However, the beginnings are difficult and the girl is forced to work in a fashion salon. Here she meets the warm-hearted Milada, with whom she also shares a sublet. In the salon, Lenka meets Pavel again after some time...
Nov 1942
The doomed love of a city girl caught in the vise of poverty is detailed in Vavra’s fluid, romantic work, one of the most elegant creations of the Czech Modernist era... The film lingers over its characters’ habitats and haunts, finding psychological truths in what each owns or desires, and countering every Hollywood-ready scene of gleaming restaurants and dazzling penthouses with realist moments of employment lines and crammed flats. Vavra’s classical camerawork and aura of romantic defeatism give Virginity a force comparable to the master of this genre, Hollywood’s Frank Borzage. (BAM/PFA)
Nov 1937
Dvořák's well-known composition reappears again and again in the serious moments of the lives of the father and son Hupeks - talented non-professional musicians for whom music gives them the opportunity to rise above difficulties and problems...
Aug 1939
A painting of a girl from another time comes to life for it's buyer in this costume comedy.
Jan 1940