Barrandov Studio

A group of Serbian socialists prepares for the war in a surreal underground filled by parties, tragedies, love and hate.

Prague, Czechoslovakia, during the inter-war period. Jan Dítě, a young and clever waiter who wants to become a millionaire, comes to the conclusion that to achieve his ambitious goal he must be diligent, listen and observe as much as he can, be always discreet and use what he learns to his own advantage; but the turbulent tides of history will continually stand in his way.

As World War II rages on, Villi and Colette are captured and sent to Auschwitz concentration camp. Imprisoned within separate compounds, the lovers must risk their lives to be together again.

Born in the early 20th century, herbalist Jan Mikolasek became rich and famous after curing countless diseases with unorthodox means. A true emblem of Czechoslovakia before World War II, the healer became even more appreciated during the Nazi occupation and the communist regime. Each regime appreciates his skill and protects him. But how much will it cost him to maintain his status in a new political change?

Douglas is a foreign entrepreneur, who ventures to Russia in 1885 with dreams of selling a new, experimental steam-driven timber harvester in the wilds of Siberia. Jane is his assistant. On her travels, she meets two men who would change her life forever: a handsome young cadet Andrej Tolstoy with whom she shares a fondness for opera, and the powerful General Radlov who is entranced by her beauty and wants to marry her.

The WWII pivotal battle of Stalingrad is shown through the eyes of the soldiers and officers on both sides of the war.

In the heady days of the 1968 Prague Spring, a group of Czechoslovak Radio journalists risk not just their careers but their lives to distribute independent news amidst national and regional tumult. Orphaned brothers Tomáš and Pája are caught in the struggle for freedom. The elder, Tomáš, is a radio technician working at the station committed to defying the Communist Party’s censorship, overwhelming propaganda, and police harassment. When security forces pressure him to spy for them, Tomáš finds himself in a bind where he has to choose between betraying his colleagues or protecting Pája.

In the former Czechoslovakia, 1950s, police captain Hakl investigates a jewelery robbery. An opened safe deposit leads to a known burglar. What seems an easy case soon starts to tangle. When he is called off the case, he continues on his own. The investigation leads him onto thin ice. Can he beat a stronger enemy and save his family and his own life?

A man takes up residence with a mysterious marquis and is soon persuaded to enter into an asylum for preventative therapy. Things are not what they seem, and the marquis may be even more sinister than what the young man may've predicted.

In the 1980s, Anna, a Czech sprinter, starts training for the Olympics. After she collapses during training, she learns she is being given steroids and decides to stop using them until her mother helps the coaches give them to her.

The devil's magic quill keeps a tight record of sins. But when this precious artifact is stolen, a demon must find a way to make things right again.

A nurse and her surgeon-lover are part of a resistance movement in 1940s Czechoslovakia. When they are discovered, her lover flees and she must find a place to hide. A patient whose life she saved, a man from a remote mountain village where time stopped 150 years ago, agrees to hide her as his wife.

Story of a small boy is forced to move out of Prague during World War 2 to a small village of Slavonice where he meets the rest of his family. He needs to make new friends and get used to a new life which is immensely different from what this city boy was used to.

ComiBaran, a protestant blacksmith arrives in the little village of Lakotice to kill Sekal, a cruel Nazi collaborator.

Olga is a complex young woman desperate to break free from her unfeeling family and social conventions. With her Louise Brooks-like tomboyish looks she drags herself, chain-smoking, from one job to another until she appears to find her niche as a truck driver. Although she has female lovers she does not form a bond with any of them; instead she clashes, time and again, venting herself in wordless emotional outbursts and other behavioural extremes.

When Standa is released from jail, he feels a brighter future is about to take hold. Instead, his bad luck grows, thanks to a new acquaintance.

51-year-old Herbert Strehlow, a furniture restorer, falls in love with 21-year-old Lea, who has not spoken a word since childhood when her father killed her mother. She bears a striking resemblance to Herbert's dead wife. They get married, but their relationship seems doomed, until gradually each one manages to penetrate the mysterious world of the other, and they begin to realize that they are bound by a kind of spiritual relationship. For Lea it is the death of her mother, for Herbert it is the death of his first wife. His hard exterior slowly beings to thaw, and he starts to show feelings and responses that soften Lea's initial hatred and fear of him, and which put their relationship in a more positive light.

Autumn 1968, the Australian running record holder Ron Clarke is coming to Prague, hoping that his old friend and role model, Emil Zátopek, the most famous Czech athlete of all time, will help him overcome the biggest crisis of his career.

In 1940s Prague, a former Nazi prisoner returns to run his posh hair salon and struggles with family, the rise of communism and his past.

Quite a few years have passed since November 1989. Czechoslovakia has been divided up and, in the Czech Republic, Václav Klaus’s right-wing government is in power. Karel Vachek follows on from his film New Hyperion, thus continuing his series of comprehensive film documentaries in which he maps out Czech society and its real and imagined elites in his own unique way.