Ivo Špalj

Tomáš Etzler worked for seven years as a foreign correspondent in China. He came to know a country that was developing at an admirably fast pace, was swayed by its energy, and for a moment believed that modernity could bring about political change as well. Before long, it dawned on him that many people would continue to be severely punished, and the regime would still keep most of the nation in a state of indecision and ignorance. Without neglecting that face of China today, Etzler chose to tell a story of hope in his personal documentary. Using the example of an orphanage for disabled children, he shows that the answer to collectivist brutality and ruthlessness can be mutual assistance, tolerance and empathy.

Jan Svankmajer, at 85 years of age, is one of the most prominent artists of European cinema. His work has inspired and guided generations of directors, and represents a sharp and merciless exploration of human nature which is entirely unique. When he decided to retire from filmmaking after "Insect" (2018), his producer suggested that the creative processes which ferment within their company Athanor should be preserved on film. Over three years, the directors of this documentary followed the life of Jan Svankmajer, elucidating his artistic principles, as well as his collaboration with old friend and producer Jaromír Kallista. The film is also haunted by the memory of Eva Svankmajerová, his wife and creative partner, muse and inseparable other half. Playful and poetic, candid and with a touch of Czech humour, it is an ode to creation and to companionship.

A story of an extraordinary artist who has unintentionally signed a deal with a devil. Jiří Trnka was one of the biggest Czech artists of the 20th century and one of the founders of the puppet animation. His work demonstrated the world that communist society can provide better conditions for extraordinary artistic creations. The ideological clash between West and East didn’t leave children and their stories apart from their struggle in ideological and political positions.

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?

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?

A poetic, but chilling story of seven puppets in train car prior to its journey to a concentration camp.

A neon heart installed above Prague Castle illuminated the city for the last three months of Václav Havel’s presidency in an artist’s tribute to his extraordinary service. His last major undertaking was hosting the NATO summit in 2002 and Němec was granted extraordinary access to film it. Set to make a “special poetic film”, it took Němec years to process what he had witnessed – George W. Bush creating an alliance to invade Iraq. It may then be the director’s revenge to point his camera lens democratically at everyone involved with the summit, giving the same screen time to kitchen and waiting staff, musicians, security detail and NATO protesters, as to the heads of states and attending dignitaries. Havel however, became as much of a subject as the president on screen, and the film’s narrator, providing commentary in his own voice from the distance of a few years after he left the office.

Франция. Молодого человека Жана Берло преследуют кошмары, в которых его отправляют в сумасшедший дом. Возвращаясь с похорон матери, юноша знакомится с Маркизом, который приглашает его провести ночь в замке. Там Берло становится свидетелем богохульной оргии и «терапевтических» похорон. Он пытается бежать, но Маркиз настаивает на том, что хочет помочь гостю преодолеть страхи, и ведет его в сюрреалистический сумасшедший дом, где пациенты пользуются полной свободой, а медицинский персонал сидит за решеткой.

Jan Nemec, a leading filmmaker of the Czech New Wave, creates an original portrait of one of the most provocative artists of the 20th century: Toyen (Marie Cerminova). As a female artist, Toyen broke through the male-dominated art world to create paintings and drawings often erotic in nature. She co-founded the surrealist movement in her native Prague, survived the Nazis and the Communists, maintained artistic and personal relationships with artists Jindrich Heisler (whom she hid during WWII) and Jindrich Styrsky.

Бездетная пара берет к себе в дом полено, своей формой отдаленно напоминающее маленького человечка. Полено оживает и превращается в самого настоящего ребенка. Супруги не могут поверить своему счастью, однако вскоре маленькая девочка, пожирающая все, что попадается ей на глаза, приводит их в отчаяние.

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'.

This combined film (black and white drawings of human hands and objects) is a parable on power and the motives affecting modern society.

It is April 1945, spring begins and ends the war. German transport heading away from Bohemia.

An animation film about a clarinet and a trumpet that meet, clash, compete, compromise and harmonize.

Что происходит с людьми, когда их никто не видит? И зачем это с ними происходит? Охваченный страстью к электронике продавец порножурналов, следователь, увлеченно конструирующий орудия эротического труда, художник — изощренный таксидермист с очумелыми ручками, его соседка — маньячка, почтальонша, балдеющая от хлебных катышков… Всех этих чудоковатых героев кудесник Шванкмайер связал странными отношениями, которые воплотились в необычную сказку для взрослых.

Чешский музыкант, убежденный холостяк по меркантильным соображениям вступает в фиктивный брак с русской женщиной. Судьба наносит ему неожиданный удар. «Жена» исчезает и герой вынужден заботиться о ее пятилетнем сыне Коле. Коля не понимает ни слова по-чешски, а его воспитатель не говорит по-русски. Их ждет трудный путь к пониманию, — путь, полный забавных недоразумений, веселых и грустных приключений, улыбок и любви…

Короткометражный номинант на «Оскар». Чехословацкий мультфильм, блестяще материализующий слова и их весомость в человеческой жизни. Герои картины — не самые симпатичные посетители обычного кафе — ведут оживленные беседы. Официант флиртует с молодой женщиной, но она предпочитает ему книгу. Женщины за соседним столиком сплетничают. Пожилые приятели хвастаются своими сексуальными победами, однако очень не вовремя в разговор вклинивается супруга одного из них. Молодая пара ругается… Все слова, сказанные в тот вечер в кафе, удивительным образом материализуются, превращаясь в воздушные шарики.

The full-length film which, though based on Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, is more about the complexity of the time and the world. We witness the creation of a modern production of Don Giovanni, reflecting the controversial present. Mozart's exciting music, uninhibited erotic, and the eternal struggle against evil which constitutes the energy of our existence.

A bust of Stalin is cut open on an operating table, leading to an elaborate animated depiction of Czech history from 1948 (the Communist takeover) to 1989 (the Velvet Revolution). Some knowledge of the subject is essential in order to understand the film, which is entirely visual.

The story takes place entirely on a kitchen counter and sees two slices of raw meat as protagonists. The first slice is courted by the second and together they dance to the notes of a recording from the 1920s broadcast on the radio, after which the two slices find themselves playing and flirting on a plate full of flour, but the passion is abruptly interrupted by two skewers who fork the two slices and fry them in a pan.

Когда Алиса следует за Белым Кроликом в Страну чудес, начинаются её приключения в удивительном мире детских фантазий, она преодолевает многие опасности и спасает сказочную страну от злой Дамы Червей. Объединяя методы мультипликации и живого действия, чешский аниматор Ян Шванкмайер создал шедевр кино, поразительно интерпретировав первоначальную идею классического рассказа Льюиса Кэррола.

A satiric film travesty of Shakespeare's dramas set in the year 2000. The protagonists are to convince the audience that human passions such as love, hatred, jealousy, etc. remain unchanged even 500 years later (paralleling the up-to-date quality of Shakespeare's dramas).

A modern version of a classical fairy-tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a veteran who got rich thanks to a magic flint and thus he could marry a beautiful princess.

An artistic animated short showing the life in secondary school.

A cartoon in the form of a comic describes the process of development of human thought.

A darkly brilliant stop-motion adaptation of The Pied Piper of Hamelin about a plague of rats that punish townsfolk corrupt with greed. One of Czechoslovakia's most ambitious animation projects of the 1980s, notable for its unusual dark art direction, innovative animation techniques and use of a fictitious language.

A microbe enters the bloodstream of a young woman.

While the humans are away, the shoes in a cobbler's workshop engage in a number of activities, including flirting, kidnapping and a gunfight.

A little girl goes down to the basement cellar to fetch some potatoes, and finds all her hidden fears about the cellar depicted in animated form.

Cartoon tennis match, with players based on Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe.

Using an array of gloves in different styles and from different historical periods, the film is a short history of the cinema - from silent movies via pastiches of Buñuel and Fellini and Close Encounters of the Third Kind to a futurist junkyard where tin cans become animated police cars in a city of urban decay.

В почти пустынную горную деревню приезжает молодая вдова с двумя сыновьями. К ним присоединяется немецкий антифашист, вернувшийся из концентрационного лагеря. Отношения строятся непросто. А вокруг ещё водятся недобитые нацистские фанатики. Несмотря на эти обстоятельства, картина сделана весьма поэтичной.

Притча, основанная на легенде о царе Мидасе. Жадный и алчный король, больше всего на свете любящий золото и не способный оценить красоту жизни, был наказан духом леса - гномом.

A dead soldier comes for his fiancée from the grave.

One of the film stories based on the old Prague legends. This one is about the old master clock maker Hanus who construed the Prague Old Town astronomical clock. Master Hanus' clock started working for the first time in 1490 but did not tell the time for too long. Soon the master, blinded by the perfidious town councilors, stopped it for more than 200 years.

A film story based on the old Prague legends. It tells about a poor student lured by wealth, which he prefers to knowledge. In the end, he sells his soul to the evil powers. The Devil takes him to hell and since then there is a blackened hole on the ceiling of a Prague house.

Kinoautomat was the world's first interactive movie, conceived by Radúz Činčera for the Czechoslovak Pavilion at Expo '67 in Montreal. At nine points during the film the action stops, and a moderator appears on stage to ask the audience to choose between two scenes; following an audience vote, the chosen scene is played.

A fable on the futility of progress for its own sake.