Searching for Ester 2005

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?

Return to Paradise Lost 1999

A professor reunites with an old friend who inspires him to return to Czechoslovakia for the first time since he emigrated years ago.

The Great Land of Small 1987

While visiting their grandparents in the Québec countryside, two children enter a fantasy kingdom and are confronted by evil forces.

The Peanut Butter Solution 1985

Peanut butter is the secret ingredient for magic potions made by two friendly ghosts. Eleven-year-old Michael loses all of his hair when he gets a fright and uses the potion to get his hair back, but too much peanut butter causes things to get a bit hairy.

We 1982

In the 26th century the inhabitants of Utopia have so lost their individuality, which varies in number. They live in glass houses (this was written before the invention of television), which allows the political police, called “Keepers” can easily supervise them. They all wear the same uniform and usually turn to each other or as a ”cipher-so” or "UNIFEM" (uniform). They feed on artificial food and rest hour marching in fours in a row the anthem of the One State, pouring out of the loudspeakers. As they are allowed to put a break on the hour (known as the ”sexy time“), draw the curtains of their glass houses. At the head of the One State is one called The Benefactor, which are replaced every year the whole population, usually unanimously. The guiding principle of the State is that happiness and freedom are incompatible.

The Woman from Sarajevo 1980

The adaptation of a lesser known novel by Nobelist Ivo Andric, which describes the life of a spinster who was overwhelmed by a single passion: avarice.

Attempted Flight 1976

The twelve year old Ivo has been living in Vienna with his family for three years. His father and brothers work at construction sites. Their Austrian neighbors despise the Yugoslav guest workers. Because the mother has to look after the sick grandmother at home in Croatia, Ivo runs the male household in Vienna alone. Solitude and insults from the locals make the child unhappy. And so Ivo decides on a rainy winter's day to return to his home village on his own.

Der Leuchtturm 1972

A psychological and existential study of a prisoner charged with guarding an isolated lighthouse. If he makes it through two years, the remainder of his sentence for manslaughter in a bar brawl will be pardoned. Nobody before managed to cope with the solitude. One day, a rat makes its way to the island. The sea and the island, the man and the rat, friendship and vendetta.

Dogs and People 1971

All My Good Countrymen 1969

The lives of 7 friends in a small Czech town from 1945 to some time after 1958.

Jarní vody 1968

The Pipes 1966

This three-part Austrian/Czech comedy stretches the boundaries of what is considered to be humorous. Part one finds a silent film actor upset because of a rival actor's attention to the former's wife. When he kills his rival, it is only when he is strapped to the electric chair that he realizes that this is his last live scene. The second episode has the wife of an elderly British nobleman having an affair with the young gamekeeper of their estate. Part three finds a peasant woman taking a lover when her husband goes off to fight the war.

When the Cat Comes 1963

While old Oliva tells a group of children about his life as a sailor and how he met Diana and her cat with sunglasses, a strange circus arrives in town.

The Pilgrimage to the Holy Virgin 1961

Farmers get away from their arguments by embarking on a religious pilgrimage, enjoy a picnic en route, and on their return decide to form a cooperative.

I Survived Certain Death 1960

Telling the prisoners of a death camp. Boxer Tony Majer, who got into a concentration camp for a fight with the Gestapo, remembers the murderous work in quarries, on the cruel torture of the Nazis and prison solidarity that helped him survive.

Desire 1958

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.

Váhavý střelec 1957