Alexej Čepička – Z vojína generálem
Czechoslovakia on Parade
This FitzPatrick Traveltalk series short looks at Czechoslovakia before World War II, including images of bridges, churches, and castles in Prague, also a non-military parade through the city.
The Commune
The desire for freedom during Czechoslovakia’s Normalization period brought together people professing a deep inclination towards principles of the underground movement. Now, decades later, they can’t face their mutual suspicions of betrayal – of having cooperated with the state security police. Drifting throughout is the memory of their tragically departed guru, philosopher and poet Marcel Strýko. To try to come to terms with the past, an old companion from Prague organizes a revival concert in a Gothic cathedral. Will this reunion of freethinkers finally lead to repentance and forgiveness?
2 or 3 Things I Know About Him
What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)
Tenkrát
Prague au service de Moscou : Dans les secrets de la guerre froide
Modelování
Czechoslovakia 1968
Short documentary about 50 years of history of Czechoslovakia, with archive images.
Tenkrát 2 – Šance pro Slovensko
Tenkrát 3 – Husákovo ticho
CzechMate: In Search of Jiří Menzel
An epic exploration of the Czechoslovak New Wave cinema of the 1960s and 70s, structured around a series of conversations with one of its most acclaimed exponents - Closely Observed Trains director Jiří Menzel.
Akce Rys
Operation Rys is a code name for survival training behind enemy lines. For three young soldiers, Aleš, Ota, and František, this means surviving ten days in the forest, avoiding capture or being lured into a trap, and reporting daily on the observed object, all with only two days' worth of food rations. Only a well-coordinated team can accomplish such a task. However, all is not well between Ota and František—their problem is named Marie.
The Flying Fercos
The Flying Fercos delves into the lives of a family who shared their home-and their stage-with over 20 lions, tigers, and panthers.
Resort
This architecturally unique resort on the shores of Lake Orlík was a secret retreat for the communist establishment in the 1960s, but later, rampant capitalism handed it over to now infamous businessmen. Imbued with a mysterious atmosphere, this portrait captures the genius loci and turbulent history of a hidden summer paradise that was never marked on any map.
Talks with TGM
On 26 September 1928, Karel Capek and President T.G. Masaryk meet in the gardens of Topolcianky castle to decide about the fate of their joint literary work. Their fiction film dialogue is based on quotes from a future book and their mutual correspondence, considerably freeing the original format of literary conversation from binding conventions. Capek and Masaryk reproach and offend each other, but they also ask key personal questions and questions about the social functions of a writer and politician respectively. "It's a film about two extraordinary men; it's about the fact that emotions can be sometimes more powerful than ideas even in such exceptional people.
They Survived Together
The Neiger family was living a peaceful life in the Jewish community in Krakow when the arrival of World War II changed their lives forever. When Nazi soldiers forced the family from their home into the harsh life of the Ghetto, they made a vow to escape as a family. But when circumstances forced the family to separate from older brother Ben, their will to survive was put to the test. They Survived Together" is the incredible, true story of one family as they desperately tried to stay alive... and together as a family with four small children, attempted to escape certain death at the hands of the Nazis. They are believed to be one of the only families to escape and survive as a family.
Česká cesta
The story of the Czechoslovak economic transformation of the 1990s, especially the famous method of coupon privatisation, which was both the core and a kind of signboard of this process.
Cesta ke svobodě
Czech Rhapsody
Essay film from Czech director Vojtech Jasný on his home country.