Vlastimila Vlková

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.

October 1918: After returning to the civil life, the young Doctor Giorgino Volli searches for a group of children, which he had been the care-taker of before the first world war began. However, soon the searching becomes a part of hide-and-seek with death. Giorgino finds a village bordered with a treacherous marsh and rumours of wolves. There he also meets the mysterious Catherine....

The firemen of a provincial Czechoslovakian town throw a ball in honor of the old chief's retirement. There will be music and dancing, a beauty pageant and a raffle. The whole town will be in attendance. However, the proceedings are dogged by difficulty at every step. Workplace injuries, stolen prizes, a shortage of pretty girls... and fire.

The movie's main storyline follows the life of Otík, a young man, in a tight-knit village community. The sweet-tempered Otík works as an assistant truck driver with Mr. Pávek, his older colleague and practical-minded neighbor. Pávek's family takes care of Otík, whose parents are dead. However, the two coworkers become at odds over Otík's inability to perform even the simplest tasks. Pávek demands that Otík be transferred to assist another driver, who happens to be a choleric and suspicious man named Turek (Turk in Czech). Rather than work with Turek, Otík decides to accept an offer of employment in Prague, but finds he does not fit in to the city life. After discovering that the transfer of Otík to Prague was a trick by a crooked politician to get a deal on Otík's large inherited house, Pávek agrees to give Otík a second chance and retrieves him from the city to resume their work together.

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...

Two classically trained musicians and childhood friends - one a successful cellist in Prague, the other a violinist who makes his money playing provincial funerals - reconvene on the eve of a small-town symphony concert.

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.

A clever but often teased boy, is able to clone himself thanks to a stolen formula from a scientist. Time to take revenge on those bullies.

A Polish criminalist specialises in various historical mysteries. He is aided by a miraculous car, with the help of which he also reaches Prague, where he unravels ancient cabalistic mysteries.

A model Communist village is visited by a flying saucer.

Cast out by his father, young Ondrej joins the Order of the Teutonic Knights, where he is raised by strict monk Armin. After years of hardship, Ondrej escapes from the Order when he is wrongly punished, and sets out for his former home. Arriving to discover his father to be dead, Ondrej now not only assumes control of his father's properties, but seeks to marry his former stepmother.

For a second time this film leads us to the village in South Bohemia. We meet again Konopnik family and Skopek family. Venca Konopnik is marrying Blazena Skopek but there is another woman Milada who is very jealous and she is spreading gossips about Venca Konopnik. Those gossips are so powerful that they lead to big fights between Konopnik and Skopek families. You will also see what a progress on milk-yielding-cows-project has been made.

A crazy comedy, turning into a grotesque with a number of absurd elements, tells the tangled story of the over-the-top siblings Zuzana and Petr, recessionists who like to prepare harsh surprises for those around them, especially Zuzana's timid suitor Karlík. In addition to the hilarious Mr. Horák and the mannequin, the amateur ensemble Dalimil also plays an important role, tirelessly rehearsing an "avant-garde" performance of Jirásek's Lucerna...

After a soldier cuts off the arm of king's cousin, king decides to deactivate the army. Of course, generals don't like it at all and they try to kill the king. The assassin should be artificial body in the shape of actress Evelina Keleti and with brain of psychotic serial killer Fany Stubová. They also manage to kill king's astrologer Stuart Hampl, who warns the king. Accidentally, Hampl's brain is implanted into assassin's body, actress Keleti is killed and chaos begins.

Mr. Benda, a married father of two children, works for a company that liquidates old banknotes. After one drunken party, he is visited by a painter who tattooed his back in drunkenness the previous night. The image tattooed on Benda’s back is considered the painter’s best work by the professionals.

For the Novák and Bartáček families, money is king, and they'll do just about anything to get it. While René Novák pitches his parents a lucrative scheme to swindle as many people with the last name Novák in the country as possible, the Bartáček clan decides to pretend to be much poorer than they really are in order to siphon some dollars from an American relative. And it doesn't take long before these separate scams start to intertwine.

At long last, King Dalimil and Queen Eliška have produced an heir, Princess Růženka. Consumed with envy, Eliška’s sister Melánie casts a curse: On the day Růženka turns seventeen, she will prick her finger and fall into a deep sleep together with the entire kingdom.

A sincere provincial young man, Frantisek Koudelka leaves to work in Prague. For the trip he buys a computer made horoscope with biorhythms charts, marked according to his date of birth, there are trappy, precarious, unsuccessful and even critical days and few successful days. The clumsy luckless person Frantisek has finally a guidance for his life.

The local farmers' cooperative organized a trip to Italy, in which the Škopkovci took part. They went there at the invitation of the Italian agricultural cooperative, whose employees are going to visit Hoštice in return. In addition to the sights, the goal of the tour was also an excursion to a modern Italian cowshed. After returning home, Hoštice and its inhabitants are waiting for a "great approach to Europe" - they plan to improve the neglected village by building a nudist beach. However, as it usually happens, the Italian delegation appears at the least convenient moment. Strangely enough, they like the cooperative's neglected economy so much that they propose to preserve it as an open-air museum...

Fairy tale about young cobbler Jíra, who had fashioned wings from leather in order to rescue princess Jasnenka from the tower of the royal castle, where her father had closed her to to save her from the evil witch and her daughter Cernava.

While Kendy returns to his hometown as an assistant director to film a thirteen-part series with a television crew, Štěpán Šafránek, equipped with his mother's advice after graduation, takes up his first position - as an intern at the local hospital. However, his inadaptability to local conditions and his sense of ethics in his chosen profession do not suit his other established colleagues. While they are amused by his zeal and responsibility, Štěpán has increasing problems with his superiors, until he is finally transferred to the position of rural district doctor, which everyone rejects. In Bezdíkov, however, he meets a new, perhaps permanent and reciprocated love, with whom he eventually decides to live and work in northern Bohemia.

A story of love and honor that takes place during the mid-nineteenth century during revolutions, as well as economic, political, and social hypocrisy. Two extraordinary but lonely artists share a passionate love, as evidenced by the preserved letters that they exchanged.

The young Prince Charles (Jaromír Hanzlík), the future King of his country Charles IV, is being educated at the French court in the company of his fiancée Blanche (Daniela Kolárová). One day he receives a summons from his father John of Luxembourg (Milos Kopecký) in Italy. He leaves for Italy accompanied by a deputation from Bohemia. On the way the prince's company fights a battle with armed Milanese against heavy odds. Thanks to Charles's perspicacity, the prince's almost naked soldiers win through. In Lucca in Italy Charles joins his father, and here he experiences an amorous adventure and escapes from the traps laid by the Italian rebels.

A dark comedy about a murder and its consequences presented in a backwards manner, where death is actually a rebirth. The film starts with an "execution" of the main protagonist and goes back to explore his previous actions and motivations.

Prague in the 1930s. A young, pretty girl gets on a crowded tram. She immediately catches the attention of a young man who not only appreciates the girl's charm, but also tries to steal her handbag discreetly. And so we meet one of the main characters of the film, a swindler, pickpocket and generally strange being Josef Kořínek alias Pépi. In addition to him, the story is populated by other characters from the Prague outskirts. Of course, the film also features the shrewd councilman Vacátko and his inseparable investigators Brůžek and Bouše. They have a sad duty - to track down the murderer of the collector Krále, who was found dead and who lost a sum of money on the way from the bank that could interest many people from his surroundings...

In this fairy-tale comedy, a clumsy second-rate wizard, Rumburak, gets stuck in the world of humans. He has forgotten the spell that allows him to return to his home fairyland. His only joy is watching the figure skater Helen, whom he would like to woo. His hopes of returning to fairyland dawn when he discovers a computer in a research institute that could generate the lost spell.

Hubert Hrabe, known as Smart Boy, is a Prague dandy who is always skirting the edge of the law. Like every likable rogue, he has a worthy adversary - Police Inspector Mourek, who has long been trying in vain to put him behind bars. However, this defender of justice, who is constantly trying to outsmart his "own" criminal, ends up becoming the victim of his own zeal while hunting forgers that are as good as any in Europe, as Hubert the Smart Boy, sets a trap for Mourek

School supply teacher timid folk art Ales Brabec won first prize at a music festival and will therefore offer to work for the Prague little theater in the basement. Its director Soukup just needs a few songs for the upcoming musical, and so is willing to do everything to Alex to create the right atmosphere for composing.

Eva and her younger brother Johnny own two sentient octopuses made out of strange matter. Will their parents divorce and ruin Christmas? Will a scientist find a way to use their pets as fuel? Live action film with stop-motion octopuses.

Honza Pavelka (Jan Hrusínský) wins the junior motorbike speed races. His thirteen-year-old brother Martin (Roman Cada), his assistant and biggest fan, answers the questions of his schoolfriend Pavlína in a superior tone. Student Zuzana (Libuse Safránková), who gave her scarf to Honza to wear around his neck for the races as a talisman is Honza's girlfriend. He met her when he came to her parent's home to repair the TV set. Honza declines an invitation to celebration with his friends. He goes off with Zuzana instead, but she refuses his intimate advances. The offended young man, who is about to serve his two years in the army, tries to blackmail her emotionally and the couple breaks up. Martin tries various schemes to bring them together again.

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

A colour-printed melodramatic selanca from the beginnings of the organised labour movement in Bohemia... Antonín Zápotocký, the second workers' president, is the author of the literary novel Rozbřesk - the plot is said to be inspired by the fate of his grandmother and mother.

The juxtaposition of animals locked in cages in a zoo and people shackled by the confinement of the city has not lost its impact to this day. The amorous enchantment, passing and bonding of the two protagonists, a young conservationist and a paleontologist, takes place against a backdrop of subtly affected period realities. The debuting filmmakers, screenwriter Jaroslav Vanča and director Václav Křístek, have attempted to spice up the story with the character of a mysterious man who turns out to be the writer of the events just narrated.

A Czech agricultural student, Šimon Plánička, arrives at the small South Bohemian town of Hoštice, and joins the local JZD (agricultural co-op) with the intention of trying out his experiment regarding the "Milk yield of cows in regards to a cultured environment". He runs into difficulty with the directorship of the JZD, but he finds them eager to help once they hear he's the son of the local agricultural commissioner, as his last name is also Plánička. Blažena Škopková is given the task of finding out how things are looking. However everything is complicated by the jealousy of Blažena's boyfriend Venca.

A crime story set in the second half of the 19th century. Krasl, a Prague schoolteacher, is searching for a statue of the Golden Buddha, which is supposed to contain compromising materials on the factory owner Riessig.

While on vacation with their bickering parents, young Eva and her little brother Johnny find in a polluted lake two strange friendly sentient octopuses made of strange material that attracts electricity. They take them as pets.

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.

It is a story of three veterans released from the army. During one night spent camping in the country they one by one wake up and meet three elvish brothers. Each of the veterans is given a magic item - one gets magic harp that provides him with servants by wish, other one endless pouch of gold and the last one owns magic hat that can create all the staff excluding money and people.

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

This wacky musical comedy builds on absurd ideas, parodic humour and many variously subverted references to famous...

Set in a bleak, filth-ridden provincial hospital, a disillusioned doctor begins to find the philosophical ramblings of a mental patient more stimulating than the company of "sane" society. As their relationship deepens amidst the grimy and decaying wards, the doctor's own mental health is called into question by his suspicious colleagues.

In the 1980s, a number of films were made about teenagers. At first they dealt with the confusing search for life orientation, the difficult entry into adult life - and gradually the interest shifted to delinquent youth. This film charts the conditions in a dehumanised housing estate, where youths, out of boredom, gather into gangs that wander aimlessly, humiliate passers-by, and attack the defenceless. He discovers that parents have too little time for these children, that their actions are downplayed until tragedy strikes.

A parody of the film The Magnificent Seven about seven transport company inspectors who bravely fight a gang of stowaways.

In a suburban villa, a woman of means is murdered. Police Superintendent Zdychynec from the Prague Liben neighborhood reports the case to Police Councilman Vacátko, upon whose order an investigation is launched immediately. Zdychynec begins to suspect the wooer of his own daughter, a handsome dragoon named Rudi, of the crime. In Rudi's absence, Zdychynec searches his rented room in the apartment of the elegant Mrs Dragicová. All his findings - among others, sand left on Rudi's jackboots and a decent amount of money in his bedside table - convince the superintendent that he is following the right lead, especially when Rudi refuses to say where he was at the time of the murder.

Mr. Novak tells a lie to his neighbor Mrs. Bartackova that her husband is unfaithful to her and that is how it all started.

Jan Zika is the legendary hero of the communist resistance movement during World War II and leading functionary of the second underground Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.

Deputy of cartography enterprise Mr. Ciruvka tries to seduce the colleague's assistant to destabilize his confident in a run for the director's chair. But things can go wrong.

An elderly tailor strangles young women with a black stocking. Inspired by a true crime.

Dana is young medical student with no self esteem, she can't deal with life, people and even not with herself. After her boyfriend leaves her, she changes to selfish woman, manipulating people and making them to serve her. She plays with her husband, neighbors and friends - for her own good and for fun.

In 1900, Stepha, the vivacious 30 year old daughter of a wealthy couple, agrees to marry her cousin Paul, who has accumulated large debts as an Austrian army officer. Paul refuses to work or to consummate the marriage, and then his health steadily declines.

Even under socialism, it was not advisable to cross the line between rich and poor. When a mason's apprentice falls in love with a girl from a wealthy family who lives in a magnificent villa during his first thug, he can hardly expect his feelings to be fulfilled. The schematic and lifeless depiction of the young generation has hardly contributed to a truer view of contemporary reality.

A bachelor named Faun with a Don Juan complex, seized with a hypochondriac's fear of the ineluctable approach of death, enters a race against time's passage. Faun's sexual love is imbued with the narcissistic vanity of a self-satisfied bacchant who even towards old age can't manage to forgo his lifelong pose as an irresistable seducer of women. He desperately searches for meaning in superficial, fleeting sex.

The hero of the opening story, the Postman Puppet (directed by Zdeněk Troška), works as a postman in the mountains. When his wife is taken to the maternity ward, he goes on his usual hike through the solitudes. Little Libor goes after the father of two girls (Petr Pospíchal), who longs for a son. Meanwhile, the weather on the ridges worsens sharply. An experienced mountaineer and his little friend spend the night in a makeshift shelter... The second episode of Hádanka (directed by Jan Ekl) has a criminal plot. A new father (Vlastimil Hašek) gets drunk with friends in a wine bar and the next day becomes a suspect in a murder. He doesn't remember the critical moments, but his testimony leads to the capture of the real perpetrator... The main character of the final short story True Love (directed by Vladimír Drha) is a frat boy (Pavel Zedníček) who spends whole days in pubs. He gets a harsh lesson from his wife, who refuses to let him see the baby...

A stout middle-aged physician whose marriage has come apart establishes a practice in a small town. Gradually he's drawn into the lives of his patients—a childless couple, a pregnant girl with a stern mother, the son of a duck farmer—and each relationship reveals a bit more about him and the idyllic but insular community.

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.

The future communist journalist Julius Fučík had a stimulating childhood and youth in a working-class environment, when his moral maturity was already showing. The authors of the film recall that the young Julek was a star of the suburban operetta scene, and in three episodes they depict him both in his early childhood and already at the gymnasium, when the outbreak of the World War shaped his determination.

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

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.

Matylda, who lives in the Czech countryside, is trying to arrange burial plans for her dying husband, Jan. While Matylda hopes to have a funeral for Jan in the small town where they once lived, there are complications. Years earlier, Jan spoke out against the Communist government and was consequently expelled from the town. When Matylda fails to convince a local politician to allow the ceremony, she uses her husband's funeral as a public show of dissent.

The economic crisis in the early 1930s also affected the inhabitants of the distinctive Moravian-Slovak countryside. The protagonist and his family returned to their native cottage from the city because he could not find work anywhere. But his younger brother does not welcome him with open arms...

Ten-year-old David joins a sailing club. He trains hard and helps repair the sailing boats, but people have to take turns actually sailing. The club chairman Vala wants David to sail with his son Olda. Olda's previous team mate Béda has grown too fast, but with little David Olda could win a place on the regatta to Finland. Olda is arrogant and accustomed to winning with little effort; he bullies David and calls him "Greenhorn". He makes David his servant and blames him when things go wrong.

The bank officer Bedrich Hroch is sent by the bank director to the zoo, which asked an allocation of one and half kg of gold for a gold tooth for a hippo. During the check up of the hippo's teeth Bedrich is swallowed by the hippo. The man does not die in the hippo's guts and he chats quite happily with his frightened wife Dása. Journalist Pip Karen, his friend is also present to the dialogue and he has immediately an idea how to use this special situation. He tells to the new minister Borovec and his opponent professor Fibinger that there is a hippo in the zoo which can speak. He also tells them how to use this situation for a political propaganda.

Even a strict and not very popular teacher can achieve extraordinary popularity with his pupils. When their favourite teacher breaks his leg just before a bicycle trip, he is replaced by his strict colleague. Although his involuntary charges are not enthusiastic at first, they eventually become convinced that it is not good to immediately reject a person just because one does not get along with him at first...

A gloomy tale about a king whose pride robbed him of love, friends and power. A cruel curse is at the beginning of the story of this fairy tale based on an old Irish legend. Until the king's newly born son raises his sword against his father, there will be no spring in the Hawk Kingdom. Although the king orders the counselor Ordon to kill the child, the nurse saves him and entrusts the child to the care of a bird. He names him Christopher and raises him together with his son Janko. Twenty years later, the king succumbs to Ordon's urging to war with the neighbouring King Ubald. It is in this war that the curse is fulfilled and the tragic fate of the new king, who cannot listen to the right mouth, begins to unfold.