Jiří Mucha

Czech painter and illustrator Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) ranks among the pioneers of the Art Nouveau movement at the end of the 19th century. Virtually overnight, he becomes famous in Paris thanks to the posters that he designs to announce actress Sarah Bernhardt’s plays. But at the height of his fame, Mucha decides to leave Paris to realize his lifetime project.

This three-part ballad, which often uses music to stand in for dialogue, remains the most perfect embodiment of Nemec’s vision of a film world independent of reality. Mounting a defense of timid, inhibited, clumsy, and unsuccessful individuals, the three protagonists are a complete antithesis of the industrious heroes of socialist aesthetics. Martyrs of Love cemented Nemec’s reputation as the kind of unrestrained nonconformist the Communist establishment considered the most dangerous to their ideology.

A woman attempts to cover up the thefts committed by the manager at the shop she works at.

During his work assignment in Tamani Kingdom, Czech worker Lojza saves a local man from dying in the desert. Two years later, it turns out the saved man was also the Taman king; and he has decided to name Lojza, a communist, his royal heir.

During the Second World War, an old fortress is transformed into a detention camp for arrested allied generals who the Germans provide with every possible comfort. In the nearby garrison camp, however, hundreds of captured private soldiers try to survive hunger and cold.