Bohuslav Ličman

A frightening atmosphere, full of chilling dampness and darkness, follows the fate of a desperate searcher who tries in vain to unravel the supposed secret of the altarpiece...

The film is a metaphor for the Cold War. It depicts two neighbouring nations: peace loving Fortuna and the not so peaceful land of the Steel City.

Set in Prague during the years leading up to World War II, this family saga tells the story of a cobbler named Vincenc Bursik (Vladimir Mensik), who uproots his clan from the country to the city, only to suffer the loss of his wife and the failure of his shoe business within months. When his daughter moves away to go live with a wealthy businessman as his mistress, Vincenc is left to take care of his two sons, who spend their days in a secret garden vying for the affections of a teenage girl.

The film, 'The Spring Of Life', brings to light a little-known operation of the Nazi SS, started just before the outbreak of World War II. Through the careful selection and re-education of young women, it was the Nazi's mad dream to create an Aryan 'master race'.

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

The heroes of this absurd comedy, full of confusion and humor are Dzharda Zemanek and Frantisek Liska.

In 1781, Countess Marie Karolina shelters an influential Abbé, a former Jesuit who vehemently opposes progress. Only Dr. Kamenický dares challenge him, restoring the countess’s zest for life. Her husband, obsessed with finding a hidden treasure, neglects the estate and seduces her ward Renáta. Meanwhile, returning exile Václav’s secret reunion with Frantina in cave hideouts is betrayed by jealous suitor Tomáš, who, with the Abbé’s help, unleashes a violent manhunt.

Three detective stories from industrial Ostrava. Police search in vain for a missing 16-year-old girl, but succeed in finding a mentally disturbed infant kidnapper. In a case of robbery, at the cost of injuring one of the investigators, they manage to apprehend a lover fleeing with stolen money across the border to Poland...

The Czech film Svítalo All Night was made to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the liberation of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Army and is dedicated to all those who fought and gave their lives in Prague in the May Uprising of 1945. Behind the historical events, the creators see mainly their simple, unassuming participants. Thus, we are presented with a number of apt portraits, whether it is the central hero Dr. Soukup and nurse Daniela on the side of the fighting Czechs, or a captain and a simple private in a Red Army unit coming to the aid of the fighting Prague, or an old, war-weary German major, who only realises the senselessness of the war at the sight of a fanatical, cynical lieutenant for whom Nazi ideology represents the meaning of life.

This downbeat, grim drama about three brothers who are reunited at their mother's funeral is actually visually as dark as its story, making it difficult at times to clearly distinguish a scene. These brothers are not particularly exceptional as people go, but at least they have branched out into separate vocations in their lives. One brother is a doctor, another is a criminal, and the third is a bus driver. Like others in Europe, they suffered through World War II, yet no matter what their backgrounds and experiences, their interpersonal relationships are not exactly gripping drama.

During World War II, dogs were trained in special centres for guard duty in concentration camps. However, one of the prisoners domesticates a female German Shepherd, which saves his life during his escape.

It is 1920, political unrest is growing in Prague and the Social Democrats are about to betray their historic mission by prioritising their own selfish interests instead of those of the working class. An extortionist scandal falls on the Social Democratic deputy Jandák, forcing him to renounce his convictions. Under these circumstances, the seriously ill Hungarian revolutionary Kerekes, who had to flee his homeland, is hiding in Prague...

On 20th of April 1945 the Soviet army launches its attack on Berlin. The end has come for Nazi Germany and Hitler decides to commit suicide. In Prague K.H. Frank (Nazi Secretary of State and Chief of police in the Protectorate of Bohemia a Moravia) discusses with his commanders how to transform the city into an impregnable fortress, but the Praguers do not intend to wait any longer. From the early hours of 4th of May people start assembling in the streets and tearing down German signs. On the next day, the 5th of May, the uprising begins.

It is the summer of 1945. A party of young people are enjoying the beginning of a new life to the full. For them this is the year one. One of them, law student Pavel, is more attracted to film than to law. With his eight-millimeter camera, he films everything that catches his attention. One day he captures an interesting face on film, a girl with an air of mystery. Pavel visits the girl, whose name is Helena, and meets hers and her elder energetic sister Olga. From Olga, he learns that the girls have spent the years of German occupation in a concentration camp and cannot forget the horrors they have lived through.

František Cepl is a young man from a simple family. He graduated from a real school and was going to study technology. When the occupation came, he had to work as a factory assistant. There he meets an older man named Telec, whom everyone knows as Hrabě. He impresses František with his ostentatious disdain for work and his shameless flirtation with women. František, whom the Count calls Papilio (butterfly butterfly), is filled with youthful ideals, while the Count, on the other hand, is an extract of the crudest individualism. He has worked his way up from a student at a business academy and a theatre actor to a member of a pre-war gallery. He blackmails, steals, drinks, abuses women and, in a way, Papilio himself.

In May 1945, a woman in Marienbad reports a murder - committed in 1933 against the German emigrant Professor Lessing. She also names the murderer. Against the wishes of his superior, who does not feel responsible for this case - it was a fascist femicide - Inspector Šedý picks up the trail and arrests the murderer, the German Eckert. Eckert was a fugitive at the trial in 1933, and now the evidence is no longer available. Nevertheless, Šedý does everything he can to convict him. He finds witnesses who support him - anti-fascists, but also former collaborators who want to clear themselves. Reconstructing the case at the crime scene, Šedý is able to prove that Eckert was at least an accessory. He is convicted. After his release from prison, Eckert goes to West Germany, where he demands compensation from his former clients.

This feature film based on the events of 1938 is a chronicle of the futile efforts of the Czechoslovak president Edvard Benes (Jirí Pleskot), politicians and ordinary citizens, to save the independence and the territorial integrity of the state from the advance of Hitler's Germany. On the 29th of March 1938 the leader of the Sudeten Germans Henlein (Werner Ehrlicher) has a meeting with Hitler (Gunnar Möller). Hitler orders him to intensify pressure on the Czechoslovak government. On the 24th of April in Carlsbad, the Sudetendeutsche Partei (Sudeten German Party) decides upon eight demands that are unacceptable to the Czechoslovak President, since they would ultimately lead to the break-up of the Republic. Benes still shows a certain willingness to negotiate, and Henlein resents this. The Germans are determined to make further negotiations impossible through incidents and violence.

The distressing fate of the Czech great Jan Amos Komenský, forced to leave his homeland after the White Mountain disaster. It depicts his encounters with various European personalities of the 17th century - the Queen of Sweden, artists and scientists. It emphasises the hero's nobility, but also his inner resilience, which allowed him to overcome many personal and professional tragedies. The parable of The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart becomes part of the story. However, Comenius's concept is sculpturally lifeless and, in particular, the religious dimension is "erased" from it. The simplistic biography therefore does not avoid schoolboyish dryness.

A modern fairy tale that takes place in the present.

A story about an everyday life of an inflectional department of Prague hospital.

The forest worker František Hrubý, a poor, hard-working man, lives with his granddaughter in a lonely cottage. Despite being in his sixties, he is still a furiant who does not let anyone talk to him, but talks to everyone himself. His desire to interfere in the lives of his companion, daughter, granddaughter or friends is rooted in his fear of loneliness and death. He also can't accept that the work he has loved all his life has become too much of a strain...

A man was killed while trying to leave Czechoslovakia. One and a half kilograms of gold was found on him - not in coins, not in jewelry, not in bars - but in the form of plates used to make teeth...

A story about a man overly influenced by the women in his life, which is unique in many ways, including the fact that he somehow turned out to be "straight" in spite of his ordeals with women, which started at birth.

Antony is obsessed with the idea of a happy family life, but his young daughter has to be cared for by the parents of his wife, who died in a car accident. Unfortunately, Martha, whom Antony has somewhat recklessly married, has a fundamentally different vision of her future than he does.

A Czech psychological film about the school of life, its sorrows and beauties. The main character is a young aspiring nurse Marie Sahulová, who, after a trouble in the hospital - she secretly brought a boy to her boarding school - is transferred to a rural health centre, where together with an old doctor and a peculiar nurse she has to travel around twenty-five villages and a number of solitudes in the harsh environment of the neglected villages of the 1950s. The nurse, a wise and experienced woman whom no one calls anything other than "babi", becomes her guide, who introduces her to the practice and the pitfalls of private life in a distinctive way. In the mosaic of everyday worries and more or less serious medical interventions, Marie matures and finds the meaning of her work and life.

A twelve-year-old is looking for his biological parents after discovering the fact that he was adopted.

In May 1945, Czech revolutionaries used several armoured trains in the fighting - partly captured, partly assembled from whatever the railway brought. One of them was commanded by the shunter Jan Chýň, who managed to bring weapons from the ammunition depot in Libčice to help the fighting in Prague.

Major Kalas from the Prague criminal intelligence service has been sent to a small town of Dubá in North Bohemia to help with the investigation of the puzzling death of a child. A gypsy boy has been killed three weeks ago and his body found under a rock. As the investigation continues, another dead boy is found. The boy has bled to death after someone cut his artery with a handsaw. Both deaths are obviously the work of a murderer - a perverted pedophile, sadist who gets sexual satisfaction from the sight of a young boy's blood.

Chronicle of frontier division Czech police (SNB) in the years 1946 - 1949.

The problematic protagonist is the head designer of a housing association who wants to make a profit at any cost. His unwitting opponent is a bar pianist who accidentally witnesses the murder of a young man and sets out to investigate on his own. An old-world and somewhat comical figure, he poignantly interferes with the cops' work, only to find that he is the one who is credited with catching the perpetrator...

A quarrel between divorced waitress Mája and her fifteen-year-old son Petr ends with the boy physically attacking his mother, and he is sent to an institution for juvenile delinquents.

In an unusual, apolitical approach, director Jaromil Jires has fashioned a standard drama that features an older lawyer with failing health who goes to practice in the countryside. His series of odd court cases reveals more about the human condition than about law. In one of these litigations a wayward nephew has cheated his elderly aunt out of her savings. In court, the nephew insists the money was a gift, but his aunt explains she only gave him the money as a loan. Although the lawyer technically wins the case, everything of value seems lost in the meantime. His services are paid for in rabbits because the aunt has no currency, and in the end, the nephew cons his aunt into parting with her savings anyway. Other cases expose similar types of petty corruption.

Captain Záruba investigates after an anonymous tip flags the seemingly extravagant lifestyle of Chemotex technician Dagmar Králová. Summoned to discuss the matter, Králová’s quarrel with engineer Vaněček, who secretly runs a suburban bootleg alcohol factory, triggers panic among the illicit network led by hotelier Černý. When Králová is found dead near the site of a murdered hitchhiker, autopsy reveals a different killer, launching parallel murder investigations. Forensic teams uncover the clandestine distillery, and gradually piece together motives and perpetrators behind both deaths.

A story about three teenage boys growing up in less than ideal families who decide to leave their parents and strike out on their own for fear of punishment for truancy.

The life of cabaret and theater actress Xena Longenová.

In the era of normalisation, a number of (pseudo)historical films were made, even described as reconstructions, which glorified the world-building mission of the Communist Party and attributed to it exclusively humanitarian intentions ("Days of Betrayal", "Sokolovo", "Liberation of Prague", "The Victorious People"). In 1929, when its fifth congress met, Klement Gottwald, who had taken the line of the Russian Bolsheviks, took over the leadership of the Communists...

Symbols and political analogies abound in this dramatically frustrating first work by a recent film-school graduate. In the story, Vojtech has survived World War II in a Czech prison following an unjust sentence. Now he is free, and the world is full of possibilities.

February 1948. The struggle of decisive social forces for the heart of Europe.