Kateřina Černá

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.

When Herra, a young Czech woman, falls in love with Nazir, an Afghan, she has no idea what kind of life awaits her in post-Taliban Afghanistan, nor of the family she is about to integrate into. A liberal grandfather, an adopted child who is highly intelligent and Freshta, who would do anything to escape her husband's violent grip.

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.

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».

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.

As every morning, men get on the tram to go to work. But on that day, to the rhythm of the tickets inserted in the ticket-stamping machine, the vehicle gets erotic and the conductress’ desire turns the reality into a surrealistic and phallic fantasy.

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.

The life of Marcela, an ordinary Czech woman is explored throughout several decades of her life. We are engaged to struggle and fight back with Marcela as her tragic life unfolds before our eyes especially when dealing with her daughter’s unexpected death, which almost drives her to suicide. The film was initially part of a series about the fate of six married couples, but the events that happened throughout Marcela’s life were the reason why the director decided to focus solely on a documentary about her.

Carnival of the Animals

Documentary about Czech filmaker Vera Chytilova.

Chytilová’s highly impressive but little-known documentary provides a fascinating and atmospheric journey into a hidden culture, one in which she herself participated. Chytilová investigates the lives of three Czech photographers (Václav Chochola, Karel Ludwig, Zdeněk Tmej) from the 30s to the present, and also embraces the submerged world of 50s culture and the work of novelist Bohumil Hrabal and artist Vladimír Boudník.