Lucie Haladová

“Try to describe what it's like to see,” one of the blind actors in Jana Ševčíková's documentary urges the film crew. The same challenge for him is to express how reality is perceived and experienced by a visually impaired person. Ševčíková therefore does not explain the blindness. Using everyday situations as examples, she empathetically and without pathos presents the stories of six people who never stop dreaming, yearning, and searching for ways to be as free in life as the sighted majority. They find sources of energy in work, sports, dance, and relationships. We are also transported into their world by the dimly lit black and white camera and the layered soundtrack.

Even amongst Christmas decorations a spark of fancy may appear. What to do though when merciless Fate (or the human hand) has placed our beloved right to the other side of the tree? No use crying when a decoration wants to achieve something - it must unhook itself. And thus, our snowman Karel sets off with the straw angel Kamil in search of snow-lass Eva. They wander through the Christmas tree overcoming obstacles, and with the help of other distinctive decorations they eventually reach Eva who is being held captive by the evil Balls brothers.

Three years after the fall of the Berlin Wall; six months before the split of Czechoslovakia. Despite all warnings, a young homicide detective sets on investigating a convoluted case that involves Catholic clerical elite and high-ranked agents of the former secret service.

The hero of the popular Czech animated series Pat and Mat, have come to us with their more or less successful, always comedy house repairs. In memory of the times of true cartoons, which marked the youth of many generations, the legendary home-based master comes to large screens with brand new adventures. Czechoslovakia's cartoon A je to (also known as Pat & Mat) is the work of Lubomír Beneš and Vladimír Jiránek, first reproduced in 1976. This year Pat and Mat celebrate their 40th birthday. However, this is nothing like that for such a large caliber. In the attic store boxes of full movies (and a projector under the stairs) and share stories with their fans. However, as often happens, they face many traps. This time you will meet a sneaky cactus and a dry tree. Meanwhile, they will naturally "improve" their home with some creative ideas. Just how?

Mr Sedlacek was writing one-sentence entries in his chronicle from 1981 to 2005. The chronicle includes everyday stories of his and his family's life, the life of the village and its surroundings as well as international events. The authors picked two hundred and used about eighty of them for the screenplay.

In an attic full of discarded junk, a pretty doll called Buttercup lives in an old trunk together with her friends, the marionette Prince Charming, lazy Teddy Bear and the plasticine creature Schubert. When Buttercup is snatched and taken off to the Land of Evil, her pals set out to rescue her.

This film came into being on a farm in the village of Hakushu, Min Tanaka's home. Min Tanaka is a very distinctive personality of Japanese alternative theatre in which the mind questions the tongue and so the body becomes the tongue. Min Tanaka's dance is able to speak even to those who know nothing about Japan and Japanese art. Perhaps it is because, on their road to discovery, Min and his dancers probe deep down to the roots of the culture of all peoples, to the time when we were not yet Europeans and they were not Japanese.

The award-winning Old Believers (2001), made over a period of five years, documents the life of a strongly religious community in the Danube Delta where time seems to stand still.