Jakub Hejna

The Czech criminal René is finding it difficult to go straight. Roaming from job to shelter, from woman to woman, he discovers that living honestly is a lot more difficult than just stealing something every once in a while. In 1989, filmmaker Helena Třeštíková started filming the then 18-year-old delinquent, ultimately resulting in the 2008 film René, which follows his life inside and outside prison. This sequel to that film begins with the premiere of René and the ensuing storm of media attention.

Documentary on the life and art of Marie Cermínová AKA Toyen or “the baroness” to her friends. Long considered a marginal figure, it was not until her death in 1980, when her estate was auctioned off, that Toyen’s masterpieces finally saw the light of day. This film is a portrait of an important figure of the European artistic avant-garde in the 20th century.

In her most recent film, Linda Kallistová Jablonská observes three girls growing up in a residential facility in Počátky, Czech Republic, over the course of ten years. She explores their dreams about liberty, the reality they must face as well as their ideas about their own future families. The sequel to her first longitudinal documentary about Adéla, Denisa and Pavla captures the rocky road to independence after leaving the facility, their reconciliation with the past, job search, new relationships, small joys and big disappointments. Not only does the director draw an empathic portrait of three young girls with no-one to rely on but themselves; she also explores the ways in which public institutions form young people’s attitudes to life.

Anny follows the life of the titular, intriguing character for 16 years, from 1996 up until 2012. Living in the Czech Republic, Anny is a 46-year-old woman whose day-to-day life has consisted of several different occupations, from a bathroom attendant and a doorman, to occasional sex work. Her outlook on her jobs is fairly simple, you have to do the work if you want to eat, spoil your grandkids, or buy yourself new clothes.

Urban, an orphan, serves a greedy master watchmaker as an apprentice. When Urban grows up, he falls in love with the watchmaker's daughter Laura and wants to marry her. Before this can happen, the master sends his apprentice out into the world with the task of looking for a mythical watch that can warn of death. No one knows if the watch even exists, but if Urban doesn't bring it back, Laura will never be his wife. The watchmaker's apprentice therefore sets out on a long journey full of hardships, which he must overcome with bravery, skill and a good heart.

Режиссёры Якуб Гейна и Гелена Тржештикова исследуют жизнь и творчество легендарного постановщика Милоша Формана, двукратного лауреата премии «Оскар», создателя фильмов «Пролетая над гнездом кукушки» и «Амадей».

Режиссёры Якуб Гейна и Гелена Тржештикова исследуют жизнь и творчество легендарного постановщика Милоша Формана, двукратного лауреата премии «Оскар», создателя фильмов «Пролетая над гнездом кукушки» и «Амадей».

In her own words, this documentary profiles renowned opera singer Soňa Červená and how the tumultuous events of 20th-century Europe impacted her life.

Only a few girls practice the art of parkour – running and somersaulting over rooftops, free-climbing up rusted scaffolding and leaping from one wall to the next. Laura takes it all in her stride. Though as she wildly races through the streets of Prague, her thoughts are running wild too. She has a crush on Luky, but he doesn‘t show much interest in her. Laura‘s parents live apart, and her mother is desperately looking for someone new. Jealousy, misunderstandings with her best friend – Laura‘s life is full of confusion. Sometimes, when she can‘t take it anymore, fantasy worlds evolve. When hope and fear push through the cracks of reality, it gets harder to keep her life in balance.

Documentary film about Czech actress Lida Baarova, who fall in love with Joseph Goebbels in the 30s.

Documentary film about Czech actress Lida Baarova, who fall in love with Joseph Goebbels in the 30s.

Life hasn't been easy on Mallory but after the birth of her son she tries desperately to kick her drug habit, and to stop living on the street. She wants to turn her back on her dark past and help those she knows best - people on the fringes of society.

This picturesque Ukrainian farm is not surrounded by fields, but by huge housing developments. Ominous cranes overlook Natasha's land at the edge of Kiev, which year after year is being pushed deeper into a pit by new panel buildings. The brave owner protects not only acres of land, but also traditional family values, faith and ownership. From a bird's-eye view of the farm, a sharp contrast emerges between the village and the city. This peculiar family business model is set forth in a four-year chronicle from the point of view of foreign visitors who don't interfere with the way of life that the family has lived for generations.

Чехословакия, 1983 год. Несмотря на свое сомнительное происхождение (отец эмигрировал в Германию, мать якшается с диссидентами), 18-летняя бегунья Анна отобрана для участия в Олимпийских играх. Ей нужно беспрекословно слушаться тренеров и врачей, даже если те предписывают ей препарат, опасный для жизни. Девушка отказывается от допинга, но ее окружение не согласно с этим решением.

The film's main theme is obsession. An obsession with love, with art, originality, copying, with success, money and... with oneself. Sooner or later, if we lose our rational upper hand over it and let ourselves be dragged down by it, every obsession leads to destruction. But it is only when being dragged down, in spite of all the cuts and bruises, that we find a unique DELIGHT, if only for a few short moments - and what else is life really about? It is like a drug. What at first seems to be weak and trivial is capable of expanding and growing into a serious problem that can appear to be absolutely incomprehensible and absurd to those who have never experienced anything like it.

Девочка и мальчик противостоят попыткам амбициозного главы местной администрации снести ботанический сад, в котором они живут вместе с родителями, чтобы построить на его месте современный квартал. Их шансы близки к нулю, но случается чудо, и к ним на помощь неожиданно приходит синий тигрёнок…

Honza was born in 1974 into the cheerless era of socialism in Czechoslovakia. At that time, his parents Jana and Petr lived in one room in the apartment of Jana's divorced mother and her widowed grandmother. A few years later, the family moved from Prague to Liberec where Petr found a job and a little house for the family. When Honza was born, his father began writing a family chronicle and he has continued to do so for 37 years. "Private Universe" show not only the life of one ordinary family, but also how the Czech society has changed in last four decades. Who are we, where do we come from and where do we go?

“You bet on someone in the beginning of the process and then you wait and see what life does with them.” This is how Czech director Helena Trestikova explains her long-term documentaries. Following on from the European Film Academy Award winning RENE (2008), Trestikova brings us KATKA – 14 years in the life of a drug addict. KATKA is an extraordinarily raw and uncensored character portrait of a troubled young woman living on the edge of human existence, desperately searching for love and salvation. Will she find it in the rehab? Will she find it in the arms of the man she loves? Or in the first cry of her long-desired baby? Tagging along with her through the back streets and squalors of Prague, Trestikova gets deep under the skin of a person most of us would cross the road to avoid, and shows us Katka’s profoundly human face. You might be angry with Katka, or your heart may go out to her. One thing is certain – you will never forget her.

An intimate portrait of a man on the edge of society, filmed over the course of twenty years.

Chytilová ran for Senate in 2006 as a Rovnost Šancí (The Equal Chance Party) candidate. The film is a collection of monologues by female party members from across the nation.

Ester Krumbachová - a costume designer, screenwriter, director; one of the boldest personalities of the Czech New Wave. She worked in theatre, she was a writer and an illustrator. She co-created films such as O slavnosti a hostech (1966), Sedmikrásky (1966), Vsichni dobrí rodáci (1969), Pension pro svobodné pány (1968), Valerie a týden divu (1970), Slamený klobouk (1972) and many others. In the 1960s, she was a 'pivot' of the art scene in Prague, attracting artists who were on the threshold of their career, just setting out to find their own form of self-realization. Those who underwent her tutelage remember her forever. Director Vera Chytilová talks to those who knew Ester Krumbachová, who worked with her, befriended her, loved her. She sets off on a search that is to end by answering the question: Who was Ester?