Zdeňka Sajfertová

Fictional account of what might have happened if Hitler had won the war. It is now the 1960s and Germany's war crimes have so far been kept a secret. Hitler wants to talk peace with the US president. An American journalist and a German homicide cop stumble into a plot to destroy all evidence of the genocide.

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Based on the only extensive prose work by the surrealist painter Josef Capek, Shades of Fern most resembles the philosophical fairy tales and fables of Josef’s older brother, the legendary Czech novelist and playwright Karel Capek. Two young poachers, more boys than men, kill a gamekeeper when they are caught illegally hunting. Panicked, they retreat into a forest that grows steadily more forbidding and deadly as their fear for the future—and guilt over their action—mounts. Loosely based on hundreds of oral folk tales and legends that haunt the woods of Czechoslovakia, Vlácil’s contemporary updating artistically underscores the relationship between man and nature, crime and punishment, isolation and society, and guilt and memory.

A story that takes place during Advent, we'll meet again with your favorite pair angel Petronel and devil Urias. Their eternal wrangling causes the rare apple from the tree of the knowledge to roll on earth. And that God is really angry. Petronel with Urias find themselves in a small Czech town on the eve of the feast of St. Nicholas. And after a series of human and "divine" tests our heroes eventually find that the path to knowledge leads primarily through self discovery through the strength of friendship, love and forgiveness skills.

After World War II, fighter pilot Antonín Maděra returns from England to his native village in the Ore Mountains to forget the hardships and horrors of war and to "live, work, and love his neighbors," as he himself says. But Svatý Štěpán, which his family had to leave in 1939, is no longer the same place it used to be. However, even in his wildest dreams, he could not have imagined what really awaited him there.

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'.

Life in communist Czechoslovakia in the early 1950s and the punishments for going against the state.

The two heroes of the film's story - the decent but dry engineer Zárub and the marriage swindler Majer - are granted this wish by the mysterious forces of the moon. The two men change their appearance, which, however, contrasts sharply with their unchanged characters and voices. The incomprehensible swap naturally becomes the source of many comic plots and situations.

Two brothers live with their mother in an old house on the outskirts of town. They both work in a printing house. Elder Bóža is a quiet, responsible person with views determined by the Christian faith. Dan is a dude who revels in pub fun. Only after the tragic death of a person, he begins to understand that something is missing in his life.

A sad story about love between Czech boy and German girl during 1944.

In a chateau near Prague there is a chantry and brothel Riviera, designed for the clientele from the higher circles. Mrs. Gábi Stolařová, called Madame, keeps a close eye on order, but otherwise she runs the place in a family spirit and makes sure that the customers are satisfied. A new employee, the beautiful Renata, disrupts the order of things and immediately draws the attention of all the guests to herself. But beneath her angelically innocent exterior, she hides a fierce ambition and a coldly calculating brain, which, to her own detriment...

Generosity, weakness for expensive pleasures and ruin is a combination that does not bode well. Johann Friedrich von Allmen was a man with a taste for women and the expensive pleasures of life. Unfortunately, his luck has run out, but now a new opportunity presents itself.

A story about a young medical school student and his adventures.

A holiday story about how little Jakub found the right man for his mother. An advertisement in which Mr. Vlk offers free accommodation at his country cottage in exchange for holiday housekeeping brings together three people, each unhappy in their own way: Vlk, an "almost old bachelor", whose acquaintance with a young girl, Mrs. Jelínková, who is in vain looking for a stronger emotional relationship after the death of her husband, is not working out, and little Jakub, for whom none of his mother's suitors have yet been able to replace his deceased father. The situation becomes complicated when his mother falls ill and Vlk has to take care of the boy alone. Jakub wins a new father, thanks to him the two adults become closer, and he finally has the father he chose and deserved.

The Slippers of Happiness is another film made by the Slovak Film Production in co-production with West German companies based on classic world fairy tales. After Slovak folk tales [The Greatest Peck in the World, Salt Over Gold] and the works of German fairy tale writers Wilhelm Hauff [The False Prince] and the Brothers Grimm [The Land of the Thrush's Beard, Perinbaba], screenwriter Alex Koenigsmark and director Juraj Herz were inspired by the famous fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. It tells the story of slippers that the Fairy of Fortune enchanted so that they would fulfill every human wish and thus bring people happiness. The filmmakers humorously transferred the plot from Copenhagen to old Prague.

In the film, the creative forces of personalities from three spheres of art collide. The subtitle "The Game of Love and Hate" refers to the motivation of an old Czech medieval satire, the theme belongs to Antonín Přidal, an expert on this subject. His collaboration with Juraj Herz created a collage of past and present, an updated, sharp satire and a parable about the clash of human qualities that could not but end up in the vault. The music of the Prague Selection - Michael Kocáb and Michal Pavlíček - also contributed to the film's offensive provocativeness - the film was one of the reasons for their complete move to the underground. The dancing chorus of medieval citizens resembles more of a jumble of long-haired maniacs, the edge of a contemporary dump intrudes into the space of a medieval marketplace, and the characters oscillate between the past and the present, whether in their appearance, symbolism or behaviour.

A Czech film about love and marital crisis as a work injury.

A coming of age drama about a young boy Jirka who lives in Prague.

Tereza lives and works in Prague. She meets a handsome man, Tommie, speaking in a language incomprehensible to her. It seems that he is the manager of the Finnish ice hockey team. A love story starts to blossom. When the coach of the Czech ice hockey team tries to use Tereza to retrieve information about the strategy of the Finnish team, Tommie leaves Tereza. Will Tereza be able to clear up this misunderstanding?

A communist journalist from Prague is sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp.

Lying in the construction industry used to be a criminal offence, but skilful people could do a lot of things. This somewhat embarrassing tragicomedy convinces us that even builders should be honest. The protagonist here is a moral designer who occasionally drops in to sing to enjoy something other than work.

Two inseparable friends, Vyžilý and Boudník, a village self-made talent and a not-so-successful professional theatre actor, want to make a living as entertainers. But they are running up against both the ceiling of their abilities and the disfavour of the approval authorities. The normalization era of the 70s and 80s does not favour anything distinctive and both heroes repeatedly experience setbacks. Although the story of a lost generation was planned at the end of the former regime, it was not released until 1990.

Even the best of friends can fall apart, often all it takes is a minor misunderstanding. That's exactly what happened to two village friends, children finishing elementary school, between whom hostility and suspicion suddenly set in. The mosaic-like plot contains a number of humorous observations, but overall it distances itself from any ambition to deeply affect the mentality of adolescents, much less the countryside.

In 1947 by the Beskid mountains, the traces of war still linger, destroyed tanks dispersed throughout the farmland creating an eerie backdrop. This film follows a ten-year-old boy and the strange visions he encounters, his world of fantasy exacerbated with ample time, space, and a lack of companionship or guidance. We see the adults that influence and dominate his life, for better or for worse. Surreal and packed with an excellent study of human emotions and motivations compounded by their rural, isolated vacuum of a town, this is a timeless and severely underrated film from a brilliant Czech director.

Once again, you can take a look behind the scenes of the Riviera Chateau on the Prague periphery, where a brothel for the socialites is hidden under the guise of an exclusive nightclub. The story takes place in 1930 and although several years have passed since the events of the first volume, the passions unleashed by the intrigues of the time have not cooled down. Once again you meet Renata, called Angel, formerly a prostitute, now the wife of the banker Justice and owner of the Riviera. The elegant Madame, who owned the business before and now works there as a mere manager, is plotting new schemes to get back everything she has...

Detective Weiner probes the death of Tomáš Ruml, found in a ruined house. Son of the architect behind a planned gypsy-quarter demolition, Tomáš seems a revenge victim, until Weiner meets Naha and uncovers Tomáš’ blackmail, rape and theft. Guided by baron Tancos, he must rethink the case from a new angle.

In the 1980s, the building themes were transformed into bipolar moral dilemmas involving overly ambitious individuals who wanted to excel at any cost. The hero is the head of a demolition crew that demolishes large buildings, initially a sympathetic young man who, in the pursuit of career and accolades, begins to transgress the boundaries of what was then called socialist morality and legality. He gradually finds himself at odds with the principles of ordinary but honest people. The narrative's bland, proclamatory film is closely connected to its time of creation, and there are hardly any more timeless insights to be found.

A modern fairy tale that combines fairy tale elements with contemporary realities and is also a film about film. The story takes place in a Barrandov studio. Nine-year-old Marushka reads a term paper at school about how she went on a field trip to the film studios with her class and how she met a "real" black priest, who was, however, terribly forgetful. She and her friend Honzik got their hands on his magic sphere, which made all sorts of incredible things happen...

Little Péťa visits his grandfather in the Krkonoše Mountains, where a swarm of bees settles on a tree. When Péťa disturbs it, the entire swarm attacks him, leaving him in a deep coma. Ordinary treatments fail, so Dr. Vrba insists on a beekeeper’s blood transfusion. Grandpa’s blood type doesn’t match, prompting a frantic search—ambulances, authorities, even foreign donors—to find a suitable beekeeper. After multiple transfusions from various volunteers, Péťa shows signs of recovery. With dawn breaking, hope returns as he awakens.

In May 1945, a broken violinist lies drunk by a creek, haunted by memories of his life before and during WWII. Once the celebrated first violin in spa orchestras, he married Jewish nurse Róza and dreamed of fatherhood, only to face brutal anti-Jewish persecution. Relegated to second violin, he spirals into alcoholism and betrayal, while Róza and their daughter are deported. Cast out by colleagues and lovers, he descends into madness, murdering a vagrant with his violin case. In a final psychotic haze, he tends a roadside Christ statue before collapsing, his shattered life a testament to love, loss, and atrocity.

Technical school student Pavel Brychta, arrives at a youth correctional facility located within a chateau in Konečno. He is an atypical, but not hopeless case for the institution. Pavel comes from a well-off family and his antisocial behaviour on the verge of criminality was some kind of response to his difficult relationship with his authoritative father. However, it takes quite some effort for Pavel to find his place in this environment of bullying, and also diverse methods from the tutors