Background Films

In 1983, communist Poland is shaken by the case of high school student Grzegorz Przemyk, who is beaten to death by police. The only witness of the beating becomes the number one enemy of the state.

A desperate hunger strike meant to capture global media attention slowly unravels into a hilariously bleak showdown between ambition, reality, and an empty stomach.

During a random check the commander of a Czech Customs Unit discovers a group of immigrants in a van’s cargo area. The chaotic incident is taken advantage of by an underage boy who flees into the surrounding forests. The order is to keep the group in makeshift space and to find the boy. But the boy’s father refuses to co-operate with the search and the unit’s members start being aggressive towards the detained men. The commander tries to deal with the ensuing situation according to the rules but slowly he becomes undecided whether to follow orders or his own conscience. A night which shakes his faith in the system he represents.

Gregorius, the Outcast. As an infant, he was abandoned by his own parents, conceived through the sinful love of a brother and sister. As a young man, misunderstood in a humble fishing village, he imagined the lake as an ocean, a small boat as a throne, and a spear as a royal sceptre. Yet deep within, he knew he was destined for something greater. Driven by a desire to become a knight and make the world a better place, Gregorius embarks on a journey that reveals the unfathomable ways of God. For within every sinner, there may also dwell a saint. Whether you are an outcast, a knight, a king, a hedgehog, or a pope, beneath the heavens there is ultimately only one true path: the path of a pure heart. Gregorius, the Chosen One. Inspired by Thomas Mann's novel, Tomasz Mielnik's poetic absurd comedy transports audiences to a long-lost age, when the star-filled sky served as a map of endless, radiant, and irresistible journeys.

Based on a true story. 1996, open sea. During his shift on a transatlantic ship’s deck, Joel, a religious Filipino sailor, discovers Dumitru, a Romanian stowaway hidden between some containers. If he is spotted by the Taiwanese officers running the vessel, Dumitru is at risk to be thrown overboard. Joel decides to hide him, as a sign of his gratitude towards God. Soon, a dangerous cat and mouse game begins. When his crew, his own friends, even God itself start to turn their backs on him, Joel learns that he has to face his cruel destiny alone.

Vašek learns that he is dying, so he steals a painting and goes to Rome to sell it – he needs money for a healer. Sitting on a train with a fake mustache on his face, he has no idea that he has, in fact, been sent on a spiritual quest of his life by a beautiful girl. His pursuers look as if they were transported from a 1970’s movie, yet his attention is constantly drawn to the other passengers, who pull him into their own stories with no mercy. Vašek slowly gets lost in a colorful chaos of other people’s destinies, opinions and his own dreams. In the end, his train will take some of them to hell, others to enlightenment or a bizarre epiphany. The film takes a humorous view on all the basic philosophical questions we have heard so many times but that we have yet to find the answers to.

Countess Mitsuko Maria Thekla Coudenhove-Kalergi was the first Japanese female to come to Europe at the turn of the 19th century. She lived mostly in the area of the Bavarian border and administered the Poběžovice Castle, an estate of her deceased husband, Count Heinrich Coudenhove-Kalergi. She was a strong and well educated woman, never left by the nostalgia for her home. The film is loosely inspired by historical sources, relying on the unique imagination of Mark Ther and his proven feel for the narrative of the untold.

One of the most striking contemporary Czech film-makers and literary figures, twice over winner of the Magnesia Litera Award, Martin Rysavý, is himself the central character of his new, philosophically tinged travelogue. He takes part in the Ukrainian Maidan, takes the Trans-Siberian Express across Russia, sails down the Kolyma river, comes across nomadic reindeer herdsmen, soldiers, mystics, artists and scholars. He tries to comprehend the present situation of two feuding countries of the former Soviet empire. The film's framework forms the director's conversation with a Prague optician, Jakub Thuri, shot during the director's check-up. Using travel materials on top, it allows a peep inside a traveller's consciousness wandering in recollections and trails of sensory perceptions from expeditions to far-away lands and finding a way how to grasp them, put them in order and pass them on.

The six-hour essay in four parts examines the history of regimes and revolutions, leaders and martyrs, from a philosophical perspective. The collage of personal memories, staged scenes and archives of collective memory compares the Prague Spring to the Velvet Revolution and shows the exposure, conflict, crisis, and catharsis of the post-communist society. Democracy can be saved through creative laughter, dissolving the untouchability and hypertrophic egos of the representatives of state institutions. The Internet frees the society from representatives of the non-functional connecting link that prevents direct communication between citizens and institutions of power. “I can see you until I spot you. Once I spot you, I cannot see you anymore.” K. Vachek

Prague, night station in winter. Radka with a small daughter, a suitcase on wheels and a sports bag get off the bus. Luděk slowly walks back home through the streets of the same city, knowing that no one is waiting for him. A few hours before dawn, the initially purposeful intersection of lonely destinies can resemble a family. A Night with Agama is about the meeting of people who are dependent on the help of others, yet have to help themselves first and foremost.

Andrew is a tough businessman and an arrogant workaholic. He runs a large, successful company in Prague. The meaning of his life is money. Ondřej has just negotiated the deal of a lifetime in Nebraska with a wealthy investor who will finance the construction of luxury residences on the outskirts of Prague. On his way back from America, the plane flies over a reservation where an Indian chief is being buried. The spirit of the Indian rising to the sky crashes into the plane and inadvertently becomes incarnate in Ondrej. And this spirit has decidedly different ideas about Andrew's life and values.

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.

A chance encounter at a German highway rest stop sparks youthful attraction between a thirteen-year-old Czech boy and a Belgian girl. In the short time between lunch and their departure, they try to meet each other. With the help of an Arab truck driver, and a man who looks like an African footballer, they overcome language barriers and avoid their families to spend a few minutes together. In this unassuming location, they share an experience that is unique to modern Europe.

Young actress and documentary director Petra Nesvacilova, decided in her most recent film to focus on police detective, Helena Kahnova, who, with a colleague, managed to send to prison in the 1990´s several dozen people in the so-called Berdych Gang case – including Berdych himself. In total, the sentences meted out came to hundreds of years – the policewoman, as an extra work bonus, received 10 000 Czech crowns (roughly 300 GBP) and a promotion which was revoked soon afterwards. In completing the film the director managed to establish a working relationship with Berdych himself and former members of his gang. What motivates a woman police officer to stand up to a mafia and what motivates a young documentary film-maker to make contact with this mafia and shoot a film about them?

This architecturally unique resort on the shores of Lake Orlík was a secret retreat for the communist establishment in the 1960s, but later, rampant capitalism handed it over to now infamous businessmen. Imbued with a mysterious atmosphere, this portrait captures the genius loci and turbulent history of a hidden summer paradise that was never marked on any map.