Czech Films 2016–2017

A family celebration is once again reduced to small talk and stock phrases, but one member may find the strength to defy routine and open up a family secret. In Johana Švarcová’s black-humoured drama there is someone, however, who intends to preserve the congenial atmosphere at all costs.

She had to face the cruel blows of 20th century history, yet she wouldn’t allow herself to be broken, and she went on to conquer the world with her talent. Olga Sommerová’s documentary profile focuses on another major Czech figure – the legendary opera singer Soňa Červená, who created a hundred roles on stages scattered across five continents.

Thirty-year-old Mára does as much for his family as he possibly can. During the day he labours in a factory, and then afterwards goes off to continue working on the family home. However, the lives of Mára and his family are continually invaded by his irresponsible brother-in-law, Pája, a football hooligan. But then Mára begins to develop a perilous liking for the latter’s wild, carefree world…

“Isn’t it partly her fault?” Variations on this dangerous question are put to the heroine of this drama, who has been raped by her teacher. Seventeen-year-old Lena ends up in a psychiatric hospital, but the insensitive staff cause her to withdraw into herself. Tereza Nvotová’s film tells us there are some demons that can’t just be shaken off.

Plumber Luboš can repair anything, but attempting any meaningful social interaction with the inhabitants of the village of Tuchlovice is but a pipe dream. And he’s a burden on his despairing mother, who wants her forty-year-old son to settle down as soon as possible. In his comedy, director Tomáš Vorel once again focuses on the microcosm that is the Czech village.

If you know where to look for them you can quickly be rolling in clover. But you can’t be afraid to get a little dirty. The reference here is to moldavite, a semiprecious stone buried underground where two diggers are itching to get at it – each for their own very different reasons… An adventure drama by Dan Wlodarczyk in which Southern Bohemia is transformed into a small-scale Wild West.

Work, friends, home. What constitutes mind-numbing routine for some people is, for 26-year-old Petr, an opportunity to contemplate the everyday life around him. In Václav Hrzina’s film this young man will perhaps never say what he really wants but, occasionally, in the silence, you can hear what he’s thinking.

Is there an age limit to changing your life? And once you decide to go ahead with it, will your nearest and dearest try to dissuade you? In Bohdan Sláma’s new tragicomedy a sixty-year-old widow finally manages to shake off the influence of her selfish sons in order to begin a new life with a hardy nonconformist. But any kind of change is going to cost something.

Under somewhat unusual circumstances, ten-year-old Jarka finds herself a new family when she starts taking care of two abandoned babies. She enlists the help of Kristián, a boy of similar age, to help her prepare baby food in a dirty garden shed. In this poetic film, the children are thus finally able to create the home they never had themselves. But how long will this idyll last?

“Never take the entire pair!” is the mantra of the Oddsockeaters, the creatures responsible for our socks just disappearing into thin air, leaving us with a pile of odd socks. Based on the bestselling book series, this animated-cum-gangster movie set in contemporary Prague draws on the tradition of Czech films for children.

Now in his 50s, when Agoston loses his job he goes out to find another. His journey, punctuated by a variety of bizarre encounters, leads him to the Baltic Sea – appropriate considering that his greatest dream is to catch a big fish. The film by Slovak director György Kristóf, shot as a Czech coproduction, was selected for the Cannes festival’s second-seeded competition, Un Certain Regard.

Diplomat Jan Masaryk had to confront both his inner demons and major historical events whose severe consequences he tried to overturn in London just before the signing of the Munich Agreement. Employing two different timelines, director Julius Ševčík tells the story of a man who felt betrayed on too many fronts. A Prominent Patient was the recipient of twelve Czech Lions.

The desolate Czech-Polish border region becomes a blood-stained battleground in a stand-off between animal-lover Janina Duszejko and a group of callous gamekeepers. Mysterious disappearances and bizarre deaths, however, might convince the local community that Nature can’t be abused indefinitely. Agnieszka Holland’s film successfully defies all genre classifications.