THE TREASURE OF BIRD ISLAND (POKLAD PTACIHO OSTROVA) – 1952, 77 min. Dir. Karel Zeman. Inspired by a Persian fairy-tale, and told in the ornate style of illustrated Persian manuscripts, Zeman’s first feature is set on a remote island, where the inhabitants discover a legendary treasure that brings them both joy and grief. For the first time in BIRD ISLAND, Zeman combined stop-motion puppetry and traditional animation to create a timeless, glittering world of wonders.Read More »
Autumn 1944, the Slovak National Uprising is suppressed and the fighters must withdraw to the mountains. Commander Repta’s unit takes along the thirteen-year old Zuzka, who lost her home and all her relatives in the rebellion. But the enemy brutally pursues them and Repta therefore must divide his unit. The withdrawal is covered by the group commanded by Peter, whose members almost all die in an exchange of fire with the German soldiers. The only one to survive is the severely wounded Peter. Zuzka, of whom everybody forgot in the zeal of the fight, hides him from the Germans. As soon as Peter is able to walk, he and Zuzka set off to meet their co-fighters.Read More »
FUGUE ON THE BLACK KEYS tells the story of an African student who studies the piano in Prague in the 1960′. The movie is shot in the style cinéma-vérité and follows young Farari in the school, with friends and on the streets where he had to deal with different characters.Read More »
kratkyfilm.com: The fortress in the setting of the landscape gives an impression of a den or a detention colony of Kafka’s fiction. The watch-towers, barbed-wire-fencing, severe guarding, all that in all-prevailin feeling of strangeness and mystery provoke fear. Immediately, the question will arise, what is it that is so strictly guarded. We witness the absurdity as expressed by Franz Kafka, and the nonsensicality of the bureaucratic and the barracklike spiritlessness as ridiculed by Jaroslav Hasek in his soldier Svejk. The story takes place in the second half of the eighties. The regime of power is tired, but any changes are out of sight. Some people are trying to find their asylum in their privacy, some defect. Who is not willing to get adapted, lives at the outskirts of the society. Read More »
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Zdenek Pešánek created the first public kinetic sculpture, for the power station in Prague. This short experimental film focuses on a kinetic sculpture by Zdenek Pešánek. For a period of eight years it issued beams of light from the outside wall of a transformer station at Prague’s power utility before its destruction in 1939. Though genuine, these shots seem abstract to us. They are a rhythmically assembled ode to the light-creating devices and phenomena of electricity. Light arcs, coils, bulbs and various luminous elements support the alternation of positive and negative film images, creating an impressive universe of light and shade. In the 1920s, Pešánek had obtained financial support for his work with electric kinetic light art. In the 1930s, he was the first sculptor to use neon lights. He built several kinetic light pianos, and published a book titled “Kinetismus” in 1941.Read More »
A confirmed bachelor is in for the surprise of his life when a get-rich-quick scheme backfires and leaves him with a pint-sized new roommate.Read More »
SYNOPSIS:
When a comet passes the earth very closely, it pulls a small part of North Africa with it. Carried along is a bunch of people. Among them Angelika, who just escaped from a ruthless weapon dealer’s ship, and her two brothers, who are searching her. Then there’s a group of natives, who plan a rebellion against the French colonists. All these conflicts become secondary when the people finally realize that they are doomed to live together on an alien planet. However this time of peace and world-happiness won’t last for long…
(Tom Zoerner, imdb)Read More »
When Herra, a Czech woman, falls in love with Nazir, an Afghan man, she has no idea about the life that awaits her in post-Taliban Afghanistan, nor about the family she is about to join.Read More »
A poignant overview of how short life can be, this interesting drama from Czech director Vojetch Jasny is divided into four separate segments. In the first skit, a young child’s impressions are observed as his newborn baby sister becomes a part of the family. In the second, a young woman falls in love for the first time one summer, and in the third, a tough, older peasant woman battles against the farming cooperatives. Finally, in the last segment, everything comes full circle as a woman who is about to become a grandmother dies while her daughter-in-law has not yet given birth.Read More »