Jiří Hálek

In 1930s Prague, a Czech cremator who firmly believes cremation relieves one from earthly suffering is drawn inexorably to Nazism.

At a village railway station in occupied Czechoslovakia, a bumbling dispatcher’s apprentice longs to liberate himself from his virginity. Oblivious to the war and the resistance that surrounds him, this young man embarks on a journey of sexual awakening and self-discovery, encountering a universe of frustration, eroticism, and adventure within his sleepy backwater depot.

Former Nazi Klaus Abard survives to the 1990s by taking anti-ageing pills. He plans to use a time travel trip to return to Germany in 1944 and present Hitler with a hydrogen bomb, so that he can win the war. Unfortunately the pilot, woman-chasing Karel Bures, dies on the morning of the trip and his earnest twin brother Jan impersonates him, without knowing about the plot.

In the fairy tale comedy, a strange princess is born. She can be wound up like a mechanical toy. At first glance, this seems like a certain advantage, because if such a child is naughty, the parents simply won't wind them up. But when adolescence arrives and with it first love, it's not so simple. After all, Princess Marenka also had quite a few problems with her "peculiarity".

Due to his profession, Fred, an easy-going and charming long-haul truck-driver, sees a lot of the world. Along his routes he enjoys the company of a lot of girlfriends who sweeten his spare time. One day, he suffers an accident in Prague which puts his co-driver Orje out of action. The beautiful Hungarian Jana persuades him to make her his new co-driver and does her utmost to take care of the stressful job. The more time the uneven couple spends on the road together, the more Jana feels attracted to Fred.

Lemuel Gulliver has had a car accident and continues his journey across the unknown countryside on foot. On the road he finds a dead rabbit dressed like a man and takes a watch from its waistcoat breast pocket. The half-ruined house that he enters reminds Lemuel of his childhood and brings up a painful memory of a dearly loved girl Markéta who was drowned years ago. Gulliver finds himself in Balnibarbi, a country where he doesn't understand the laws and habits and so continually offends against public decency. It is a day when people are ordered to keep their mouths shut and they force their visitor to follow suit. He faces harsh interrogation and finds it difficult to explain that he is not the rabbit Oscar whose watch has been found in his possession.

This futuristic science fiction comedy features an atomic bomb blast that causes women to grow beards and lose the ability to have children. A summit meeting is held at the United Nations, with the proposed solution of building a time machine. The decision is made to travel back in time and murder Einstein, with the hopeful result being that without the noted mathematician's research there will be no atomic bombs.

Czechoslovak comedy film directed by Ladislav Smoljak, about the fictional national hero Jára Cimrman (universal genius, inventor, sportsman, criminalist, poet, writer and philosopher).

This comedy is about one average family. The father works as master in the factory and his son is studying on high school. One day father must start to visit the evening school. It's the same school as his son visiting. The lives both students are connecting together. The son must teach the math and physics his own father. The father getting to know, that the life of the students is not simple as he supposed.

​Two aliens stir up trouble on Earth in order to study humans. Misunderstandings ensue.

A comedy about two bumbling policemen investigating an alleged rape in a small Czech town. One of the alleged rapists is supposed to get married the day he's locked up.

The Homolka family celebrates a great occasion: they were finally able to buy a car. They immediately begin to drive for small trips to Hradcany, to the airport, and plan further trips. Their euphoria is spoiled by a letter from their great-grandmother. Their great-grandfather is dying and the family is expected to come along to say goodbye. The annoyed Homolkas therefore set off to the South Bohemian village where the grandparents live.

Frank visits his friend Josef, who introduces him to his pedigree rabbits and his wife Mary. Frank is more interested in the slightly unsettling fact that Josef and Mary's garden fence is entirely made up of living people holding hands.

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.

The film is a concert of well-known actors from an alcohol rehab where a middle-aged man has taken refuge to get rid of his addiction. In the rehab, cruelty is personified by the attendant who, with sadistic satisfaction, hands out demerit points for the slightest sign of displeasure or rebellion.

The fisherman Fuksa fishes in the creek an old bottle and he sells it to innkeeper Merta. When Merta opens it, a genie appears, who can fulfill all his wishes.

Slacker Maurice Fadinar wasted his whole inheritance and the only way out of this situation, as it seems, to marry Helen Nonankur - daughter of a wealthy farmer. At the last meeting with his mistress in a nearby forest Fadinar's horse eats straw hat which belongs to a married lady, spending time in the company of young and hot Lieutenant Emil. Emil literally puts a knife to Maurice throat - or the lady will get back the exact same hat immediately, or he will arrange such a scandal that no wedding will not happen ...

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.

A model Communist village is visited by a flying saucer.

No description available.

According to one Beskydy Mountains legend, if you do a good deed you will see silver trees. Little Ondra knows trees like that. In his family's cottage hangs a picture showing silver firs, a person falling from a height and a watch. In art lessons Ondra paints trees of the same kind. - One day Lojzek Hojgr, a man who climbs fir trees to gather the seeds, comes to see Ondra's parents. Long-ago Ondra's father has had such a job and Lojzek is his long-time friend. Hojgr moves into a half-ruined wood cabin. Ondra's father takes him on a visit to Lojzek and both demonstrate the beautiful but dangerous work of seed-gathering to the boy.

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...

The waitress Gita from the hotel "Bobí vrch" approaches her lover who has not left his wife yet and gives him an ultimatum: if he does not do all according to her wish, she will announce to the police his machinations with foreign currency.

A comedy concerning a down on his luck bookshop owner with a penchant for women who decides to make some money by pretending to be a waiter and collecting cash from unsuspecting diners.

A princess was so beautiful and had such golden hair that she was known as Pretty Goldilocks. A neighboring king fell in love with her from her description, but much to the king's disappointment, she rejected his ambassador, saying she had no wish to be married...

An allegory set in an archetypal Czech village, it tells the story of what happens when a series of mysterious events take place, including the disappearance of the station master. While everything has a rational explanation, collective paranoia takes over and everyone's worst instincts are unleashed. Interrogations, disenfranchisement, and the search for scapegoats ultimately lead to murder. The movie was completed in 1969, but it was banned and not released till 1990, Evald Schorm who died in 1988 never saw it completed.

The theft of a pearl necklace and subsequent murder took place at the Tartaros cabaret. All this could compromise the minister, who is an admirer of the singer Clara. The real culprits must be found as soon as possible...

An artist's studio is descended upon by a group of retired men and a young mother who agree to model in the nude for money. Comedy ensues as the students and the local bureaucracy react to the models, all in need of extra money. Several running gags border on slapstick as the officials and the students don't know what to do with the nude models.

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.

No description available.

This tale is about young Ludvik (Robert Nespor) an erstwhile, budding scientist whose practical sense leads him to experiment before his common sense has figured out the results. Due to that unfortunate pattern, he variously floods the bathroom while working on displacement of volume and weight in water, he shatters the harvest pumpkins but not the law of gravity, and now he is eyeing the neighbor's rabbits for an electricity experiment. While the rabbits remain safe for awhile, Ludvik's parents wish he would follow in their more traditional footsteps and dedicate himself to music. Instead, Ludvik has learned that the proper mixture of a certain carbide and water can be explosive, and while he works on that technique, a friend tips off the physics teacher about these potentially disastrous plans.

Wartime events from a child's perspective were a popular theme during the previous regime - here it is a twelve-year-old village boy who experiences dangerous situations with retreating Nazi troops in picturesque South Bohemia... Any attempt to achieve a more believable depiction is destroyed by the staging's grandeur, and in the end the result is an awkward piece, suitable at most for celebrating the relevant national holidays. A longer copy with a tragic ending is stored in the NFA. Milda is shot unnoticed by an SS major.

A commemorative and essayistic meditative piece on the Prague quarter Libeň during the 1950s.

During the change of functions in the Fortuna medical ceramics company, Bohouš Fisher, an independent clerk, became deputy director of the company against his will. As a result, he is forced to make even greater compromises than before. He takes part in unnecessary meetings for which he has to raise money from company funds because of his position, or he jocularly solves a "work" accident of two employees who were engaged in love games instead of work. It's not much better in his private life. He would like to do some meaningful work, like building a stove.

Sixth-grade pupil Katka daydreams during a math class about being Snow White and being freed by a prince who looks very much like Dzery from the eighth grade. Katka, her girl friends Lenka and Martina, and her fellow-pupils Franta, Joska and freckled Vrabcák, have spent five years going to the same little one-class school in their home mountain village of Pastvina. Their kind teacher Smetácek was very understanding about their games and fantasies, but he didn't teach them much about arithmetic. They are now laughed at for their ignorance by the strict Bidlo, their new teacher at the near-by little town. As he does every year, Smetácek is preparing a theatre performance with the local children. Katka suggests the fairytale about Snow White

Inseparable friends Štěpán and Kendy are students in their final year of high school. When they are in the principal's office after the trouble with the rather scandalous song "On the Carpet", the school principal gives them the idea of ​​rehearsing a theater performance. They decide on Tyl's Forest Maiden in a rather unconventional version - with music, singing, and several unusual props. While Kendy sees the theater as not only an opportunity to enjoy himself, for Štěpán it is a chance to get closer to the charming Marcela Borůvková. What was originally just a student recession soon starts to get out of hand for both authors, not only because of the quirky cast but also because of information in the press, which is taken care of by the father of one of the classmates. The business is gaining in size, and even a television station is contacted, which shows an interest in making a program about the performance. At that moment, the disaster seems inevitable to Štěpán and Kendy.

A cheerful fairy tale about a prince whose parents wanted to cure him with a magic potion. The king and queen are very unhappy with their son's irresponsibility, as they would like to marry him off and hand over the reigns of power to him. They therefore invite the witch Valentina to the castle to prepare a magic potion of responsibility for Prince Hector. However, the potion is too strong, and so everything begins to unfold a little differently than the royal parents had imagined.

A story of two boys who during the summer at a recreation area become best friends despite being enemies at first.

A run-of-the-mill family is terrorized by strangers dressed in military garb who invade their private realm.

A cheerful fairy tale about a devil who went among people to find a sinner and found much more. This cheerful fairy tale tells the story of how two young devils, Drmáš and Mezoul, took their final devil exams, but neither of them wanted to finish first! The reward for the winner was to be Lucifer's unpleasant daughter Lucinda. However, the fairy tale is not only about devilish marriage, but also about Drmáš's love for an earthly girl and the fact that, without any of us realizing it, hell is sometimes "devilishly" close!

Criminal comedy, a first movie from the "Chief" series.

The heroes of the small-town story are former friends Standa Stuchlík and Robert Sura, who become arch enemies, and not only because of their classmate Zuzana, whom they both like. While Robert, the dude, has rich parents who spoil him and buy him everything he asks for, Standa has to earn a hard living playing in a rock band, working part-time in the boiler room and constantly defending his hobby against his parents' disdain. His only support is his uncle Edda, also a musician.

The accountants at a agricultural cooperative near Prague have completed the calculation of wages. The driver with the cashier are leaving for a bank in Prague to withdraw the cash amounting to over one million crowns. On returning back, an oncoming heavy truck appears, crashing into their car. The injured men cannot defend themselves, and the whole cash is stolen from them.

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...

Comedy based on short Sean O'Casey play. John Jo Mulligan finds himself in a situation with which his pious conscience cannot cope. He has spent a night with the cunning seductress Angela. Full of remorse and dreading the ruin of his reputation, he tries to get rid of her, fearing that his pal Halibut or his landlady Miss Mossie might get to know. Angela sees her chance, turns gold-digger and does not leave before relieving John of a considerable amount of money.

No description available.

The story of a music academy student Zdenek, who meets a charming girl, and without realizing also gets a son with her. Dealing with such a situation is not easy, especially when one day the child's mother disappears. Twenty year old Zdenek faces a serious decision. Although he is aware that a child may endanger his studies and perhaps even future career, he refuses to entrust him to the care of the state institution.

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.

Prince Victor looks in vain for a swan which was wounded by one of his servants. Instead he discovers a beautiful girl with golden hair who has an arrow in her shoulder. She is dumb and can't explain her origin. He falls immediately for her. The girl quickly recovers, but disappears mysteriously.

A short story film depicting the three different faces of crime. In the short story "The Weekend", Karas kills a woman he raped some time ago in order to silence her. However, he accidentally kills another woman. In "Hostages", a drug addict, Chaban, terrorizes the hospital's operating team, but the disciplined doctors handle the difficult situation. In "The Pickpocket", the thief Benda wants to return to his trade immediately after his release, but his attempt ends tragically.

Adaptation of Vladimir Paral's comic novel, which criticizes consumerism as an attitude of life.

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.

Three short stories. Prague finally sees the approval of the subway construction. Thousands of individuals took part in preparing, course and finalizing construction of subway and their lives crossed at certain points of this construction.

Sherlock Holmes likes to play violin and expects a great career in music. He gets a place in a spa orchestra, but he is again and again distracted by criminal cases. Therefore he is the only one who does not see that his violin has no future. He solves the criminal mysteries in passing but the final test shows that the famous detective is tone-deaf.

A beautiful maiden lives with her father in an ancient castle. She has rejected all suitors so far. She herself does not yet know if she will ever love. To avoid marriage, she sets a condition that her hand will belong only to the one who wins a contest dressed in nothing but linen. She expects everyone to refuse, as fighting in only a linen shirt means certain death. However, one of the suitors agrees to the condition...

The film tells the story of an enthusiastic young man who joins a textile factory in the late 1950s and assumes that a promising career awaits him - the protagonist is therefore constantly comparing himself to his favourite literary model, the equally ambitious Julian Sorel from Stendhal's fresco The Red and the Black. The result, however, lacks the necessary conviction, the ability to draw the viewer into his world, and remains too contrived, as the chosen period has become a mere non-committal backdrop for amorous games.

A West German businessman Friedrich Schmidt is arriving to Czechoslovakia with private mission and mission for Intelligence service. He wants to settle the old event from the time of the Second World War when he as a student of the Czech grammar school in the town of Kostelec took part at the denunciation of his schoolmate Pavel Richter. Pavel was during the period of Nazi terror following the assassination of Acting Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia Heydrich executed. Schmidt has also to enter into relations with persons suitable for cooperation with the West Intelligence service. Schmidt - earlier, before the German occupation Smíd - meets the schoolmates and endeavors to avert suspicion that arose already at the time of the tragic event.

Several of the works of writer Bohumil Říha have been filmed. This novel by the pro-regime writer also inspired a children’s film, which was directed in 1981 by the experienced family filmmaker Václav Gajer. The story takes place in 1947 and it is based on the popular model of the relationship between a human hero and an indomitable animal protagonist. The tale of the freedom necessary for life, is, of course, beholden to the standards of the time: the Hucul horse that heals an old villager, has remained in the small village in Šumava after the Soviet soldiers have left. This is a pleasing movie that engages with the acting performance of Zdeněk Řehoř and the depiction of the indisputable beauty of the Šumava landscape as shot by cameraman Jan Němeček.

A special story about love, dance, and immortality takes place in the late 1940s. A young man, dance master Mayer, arrives at a pulmonary sanatorium. His diagnosis is serious—tuberculosis. However, he does not give in to his illness and begins to actively fight it with dance and optimism. Gradually, he wins over other patients who had previously resigned themselves to their fate. Soon, however, his illness breaks out in full force and insidiousness. Facing death, he embodies human courage and a positive attitude towards life.

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...

Švand, a room painter from Strakonice, begins a dizzying career as a pop music star, but he soon discovers that fame is not the most important thing in life or what he is looking for and what he longs for in life.

Wild Swine is actually an ironic name for the great search operation of Prague's criminologists, who in a tangle of criminal activity of various kinds were digging around like wild swine before they managed to solve a complicated case. The story takes place in a variety of social spheres, from the Roma people to the world of Prague prostitutes and bakshellers to prominent people.

A recording of a theatre production directed by Jan Kačer from 1967.

Pacific Island - 1945. Five American soldiers were sent to reconnoiter the Japanese rear. Surrounded by unpredictable jungle and terrible heat, they have been moving in unknown territory for over two weeks in order to find the enemy. Commander Grackmiller, due to the fatigue of the rest of the platoon, takes it upon himself to scout the area ahead of them, and the soldiers Smile, Burda, Tall and Rozden are to wait for him and hold position. The heat to kill, exhaustion and nervousness soon begin to take a toll on their sanity and morale. Unafraid to say anything to each other's faces, vigilance and caution are completely gone and paranoia and suspicion take over instead. After a while, strange noises start coming from the jungle, which Smile goes to investigate, and comes back pale as death...

No description available.

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.

A baleful limping man walks through Prague. He is Asmodeus (Juraj Herz), the fiend of lustfulness, entertaining himself by putting together by magic couples of lovers. He only fails at the swimming pool. Zuzana (Jana Sulcová), the good-looking blonde, ignores the men whom the devil foists off onto her. She loves Honza (Václav Neckár) and the boy shares her feelings. The fiend is annoyed by the couple and tries to provoke a row. He sends heavy rain to force them into a hotel and then warns Zuzana's father by phone, but the young lovers manage to get out in time. Then the obstinate Asmodeus takes Honza in his sleep to the Institute for Emotional Disorders, where he shows him the ugly sides of love - hysteria, voyeurism, fetishism, suicide attempts...

No description available.

A Czech film comedy about the ordinary days of an ordinary Novák family, about the confusion of finding and the winding road to wisdom...

A fairy tale full of mystery, love, and heroic battles. A story about the love of Knight Cornelius and comedian Vendelin for a mysterious beauty, about whom legend says that when she cries, real pearls roll down her cheeks.

The 19-year-old volleyball player has been bedridden for a long time due to a spinal injury. The self-confident and energetic girl has time to recap her life and short sporting career so far...

Angelika, a ten years old daughter of a spa visitor Bachmann is terribly bored in Karlovy Vary spa. Her father enjoys different spa procedures, trying to lose some weight, but the little girl feels to be only waiting for something to enjoy. Moreover, she cannot speak any Czech unlike her father. Kája, a son of the hotel receptionist Vlasta, attempts to amuse her despite he cannot speak German. Both children make friends although there is the language barrier.

Two young, inexperienced students, dissatisfied with the demands of their teachers and the mentoring of their parents, try to cross illegally into the country - but because they are headed for friendly Poland, nothing happens to them. The story is set in the early 1960s and depicts the heyday of café bands. The two protagonists admire one such band, which plays jazz, misses school and wants to radically change their current life, which they find grey...

The television adaptation of Jaroslav Hašek's satirical short story.