Movies: Michael Kocáb

The title of this documentary about Michael Kocáb alone suggests that art and politics will collide onscreen. Although this cinematic portrayal focuses primarily on the artistic pursuits of the protagonist — who reminisces with slight improvisation h...

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 directio...

A comedy about Simon, an honest, clever confectioner. In practical life, the humble bachelor becomes an easy prey to his boss, his mother, and hordes of women eager to get married. The story incorporates well-tested methods of nearly all major period...

A Czech film about love and marital crisis as a work injury....

Tereza lives and works in Prague. She meets a handsome man, Tommie, speaking in a language incomprehensible to her. It seems that he is the manager of the Finnish ice hockey team. A love story starts to blossom. When the coach of the Czech ice hockey...

The Slippers of Happiness is another film made by the Slovak Film Production in co-production with West German companies based on classic world fairy tales. After Slovak folk tales [The Greatest Peck in the World, Salt Over Gold] and the works of Ger...

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Eleven disparate adolescents, gathered for a skiing camp at an isolated winter resort, find themselves preyed upon and set against one another by their three mysterious instructors....

This time-lapse documentary follows the last years of former President Václav Havel's life, creating a multi-layered portrait of a world-famous political icon and important playwright, but also an ordinary man plagued by health problems. Havel allows...

A communist journalist from Prague is sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp....

In the film, the creative forces of personalities from three spheres of art collide. The subtitle "The Game of Love and Hate" refers to the motivation of an old Czech medieval satire, the theme belongs to Antonín Přidal, an expert on this subject. Hi...

A man breaks into a large, seemingly abandoned old house to plunder the gold received. But the house is really abandoned?...

The honest and a bit naive director of a variety agency, Jožin Petránek, sits on the qualification committee that judges entertainers and performers of all kinds. The man firmly rejects any favouritism. But at work and at home, he's in for nothing bu...

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Like every year, a group of friends arrives at a remote and secluded place to "celebrate their friendship". This is the 36th time now, but this year is going to be different. Stana has lost his battle with cancer and for the first time ever there are...

From the behavior, discourse, and appearance of individual actors, Vachek composes, in the form of a mosaic, a broad and many-layered film-argument about Czechoslovak democracy in the period of its rebirth, all administered with the director’s ini­mi...

This distinctive documentary portrait of Prague extolls the beauty, significance and spirit of the ancient city adopting modern way of life. The form and content of the film share a common underlining principle. The author doesn't simply list out the...

Emil (Vaclav Chalupa as a teen, Ondrej Vetchy as an adult) has been naughty, and his family is at a loss about what to do with him. He's been dallying with the family maid. They decide to ship him off to spend time with his uncle Ernst Michel Piccoli...

As the Khmer Rouge carves a path of death throughout the land, a Czech doctor falls in love with a Cambodian woman. Their relationship, though sorely strained by the war's horrors, produces a child. The doctor is separated from his family once Pol Po...

A boyish dispute over drums full of scared pigeons....