Czech films about freedom

The inspiring true story of Seretse Khama, the King of Bechuanaland (modern Botswana), and Ruth Williams, the London office worker he married in 1948 in the face of fierce opposition from their families and the British and South African governments. Seretse and Ruth defied family, Apartheid and empire - their love triumphed over every obstacle flung in their path and in so doing they transformed their nation and inspired the world.

The Humorist is a film about a week in the life of Boris Arkadiev, a fictional Soviet stand-up comedian. Boris is tormented not only by external oppression and censorship but also by his own insecurities that poison all his relationships.

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A train dispatcher encounters a mute stranger who appears out of nowhere, and finds himself mysteriously involved with a murder in Poland. The end of the eighties in the twentieth century. Alois Nebel works as a dis­patcher at the small railway station in Bílý Potok, a remote village on the Czech–Polish border. He's a loner, who prefers old timetables to people, and he finds the loneliness of the station tranquil – except when the fog rolls in. Then he hallucinates, sees trains from the last hundred years pass through the station. They bring ghosts and shadows from the dark past of Central Eu­rope. Alois can’t get rid of these nightmares and eventually ends up in sanatorium. In the sanatorium, he gets to know The Mute, a man carrying an old photograph who was arrested by the police after crossing the border. No one knows why he came to Bílý Potok or who he’s looking for, but it is his past that propels Alois on his journey…

A young queen falls in love with her physician, and they start a revolution that changes their nation forever.

In the 1980s, Anna, a Czech sprinter, starts training for the Olympics. After she collapses during training, she learns she is being given steroids and decides to stop using them until her mother helps the coaches give them to her.

With the Nazi takeover of Europe underway, the Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich arrives in Prague and his underlings begin enforcing his authority in the towns and villages across the occupied country. In Lidice, the film's main protagonist, František Šíma, is sent to prison following a family dispute that results in the accidental death of one of his sons.

The Russian Czar Peter the Great commissions Jonathan Green, an English traveller, to map the Far East territories of the Russian Empire. Green sets off on yet another long journey, full of unbelievable adventures, which eventually leads him to China. On his way, the famous cartographer makes breath-taking discoveries, meets mysterious creatures, Chinese princesses, deadly masters of oriental martial arts, and even Lun Van, the King of Dragons, himself. What could be more perilous than looking into the eyes of Viy? Only meeting him again… What will prevail this time — the unflinching scepticism of the scientist or ancient black magic, which has already gained influence over the Far East Lands?

Stuck in the corridors of time, Godefroy de Montmirail and his faithful servant Jacquouille are projected to a time of profound political and social upheavals: the French Revolution... specifically, The Terror, time of great dangers, during which the descendants of Godefroy and Jacquouille had their castle and all their property confiscated by arrogant aristocrats, fleeing and lifes hanging by a thread.

A story of Eliska and her daughter, starting a new life in a remote house with the 'father away on business', as the mother claims. After the lie is disclosed, their relationship begins to wither. At that time, the mythical Noonday Witch begins to materialize. She is coming closer and closer and the question is poised: is the danger real or is it all in the mother's crumbling head?

Every country that enforces the death penalty needs people to kill other people. Four men are put in front of an unthinkable but simple choice. Whatever they decide, it will directly or indirectly corrode them selves, their relationships, and their entire lives.

Based on a miraculous true story that drew the attention of the entire nation, is the dramatic, thrilling, and spiritual journey of Ashley Smith and Brian Nichols. After being taken hostage by Brian in her own apartment, Ashley turns to Rick Warren’s inspirational book, The Purpose Driven Life, for guidance. In reading from the book, Ashley not only finds purpose in her own life, but helps Brian find a more peaceful resolution to a harrowing situation.

Set in a world where love is deemed illegal and can be eradicated with a special procedure. With 95 days to go until her scheduled treatment, Lena Holoway does the unthinkable, she falls in love.

Young director Honza David films the Russian invasion in in Prague in August 1968. With Eva the love of his life he tries to get out of the country. He wants to bring the explosive material to Vienna, to the director of the Austrian Television Helmut Zilk. He knows Eva very well but the Czech Secret Service even better ...

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Knight Borek is searching for his missing son. Enthralled by the stories of children's crusades, little Jan has run away from home. Borek's crusade is a journey into his own subconscious, where he is forced to confront his greatest fear.

Eugene, an aging man, leads a double life – one real, the other in his dreams. He goes to see a psychoanalyst, who tries to interpret the meaning of his dreams. Eugene finds a way of entering his dream-world at will and finds out about his childhood and what really happened to his parents.

A story set in a small village in Sudetenland between 1937 and 1945. "Habermann" is based on true events.

A World War II satire that follows a lonely German boy whose world view is turned upside down when he discovers his single mother is hiding a young Jewish girl in their attic. Aided only by his idiotic imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler, Jojo must confront his blind nationalism.

The Shamer's Daughter, Dina, with the magical power of compelling people to admit their most secret shame, must save her family with her newly found father. But he is a Blackmaster, with the power to make people see and believe things that aren't true, so Dina must deal with having inherited this horrible power, while forging a relationship with a father she fears and mistrusts.

Four very different people live in the same building but avoid each other because of differences in how they live their lives, what they believe in, and where they come from. They would probably never exchange a word, but misfortune pushes them towards each other. Their lives entangle in ways that profoundly challenge deep-held beliefs and prejudices surrounding material status, sexual orientation, nationality and religion. Slowly, and even painfully, they begin to open up to each other and recognize the essential humanity each of them possesses.

Set in early 19th century Wallachia, Romania, a policeman, Costandin, is hired by a nobleman to find a Gypsy slave who has run away from his estate after having an affair with his wife.

A visual dreamscape of Prague streets, a hallucinatory vision of a world from the operating table for robotic heart surgeries, collaged together with the stories narrated by the mysterious Dr. B, who is a gifted surgeon at the centre of a conspiracy and a criminal ring trafficking in human parts, especially hearts. Because that’s where the world has ended up – humans thirsting for endless lives and shadowy businessmen and dealmakers taking advantage of this hunger. Set to original music by Němec’s student and fellow filmmaker Petr Marek and his band Midi Lidi, the rich soundscape of the film creates a distinct counterpart to the freewheeling visuals shot digitally in 3D. The former Czech president Václav Havel makes an appearance in the film recalling a script he wrote in the 1960s with Němec, his distant cousin, which the present film utilises as a reflecting surface.

The cold war, the space race, and NASA’s moon landing are landmark events that defined an era. But they are also fodder for conspiracy theories. In Houston, We Have a Problem! filmmaker Žiga Virc adds new material to the discussion on both fronts. This intriguing docu-fiction explores the myth of the secret multi-billion-dollar deal behind America’s purchase of Yugoslavia’s clandestine space program in the early 1960s.

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Writer and expatriate Marina receives an invitation to meet graduates. Resigned to the nostalgic impulse, she flies from Europe to Novustoinovsk - a district city in the middle of the country, which has long ceased to exist. There, in the provincial hinterland of the past, her memories and old friends live, all of them ephemeral as television programs from another life. This is a life story about fate of ordinary people, about quarrels, spiritual growth and decline, about hope and changeable memory.

The lives of three best friends - Linda, Vanda and Edo - get all tangled by four attractive men.

After a fictitious marriage with a Russian emigrant, Cellisten Louka, a Czech man, must suddenly take responsibility for her son. However, it’s not long before the communication barrier is broken between the two new family members.

The account of keepers of the Warsaw Zoo, Jan and Antonina Zabinski, who helped save hundreds of people and animals during the Nazi invasion.

Set in the year 1720, the story is about what happens to 29-year-old Tordenskiold when the Great Northern War ends and he doesn't know what to do with the rest of his life. His trusted valet persuades him to go on a European ‘road trip’ to search for a bride.

After failing to apprehend the terrorist behind a Paris attack that claimed dozens of lives, CIA agent Alice Racine is forced to live in London as a caseworker. Her mentor unexpectedly calls her back into action when the CIA discovers that another attack is imminent. Alice soon learns that the classified information she's uncovered has been compromised. Running for her life, she turns to a former soldier to help her prevent a lethal biological attack on the citizens of London.

When a marriage counselor is abandoned by her husband for a younger woman, she sets out for new companionship.

In a future where a failed global-warming experiment kills off most life on the planet, a class system evolves aboard the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe via a perpetual-motion engine.

A CIA agent gets caught up in political intrigue after he gets brought in to solve the murder of a Cuban ambassador.

Three years after the fall of the Berlin Wall; six months before the split of Czechoslovakia. Despite all warnings, a young homicide detective sets on investigating a convoluted case that involves Catholic clerical elite and high-ranked agents of the former secret service.

1945 year. The International Military Tribunal begins work in Nuremberg. The trial, which will later be called the Process of the Century, attracts a huge number of people from all over the world: the city is overflowing with journalists, lawyers, translators, witnesses and many participants and employees of the process. Among those who come to Nuremberg to work at the Trial is Igor Volgin. He is young, but went through the war, has awards, speaks several foreign languages. Volgin will be a translator for the Soviet delegation led by Colonel Migachev. Once on the street of Nuremberg Volgin meets a young Russian girl Lena. Their nascent feeling will go through many trials, but love is the only thing that at all times saved the world from dehumanization.

The film tells about the history of the Holocaust through the stories of its unwitting Witnesses.

What happens in the mountains, stay in the mountains. Giant Mountains are truly the spice of local highlanders who live here, whether any season. Skier with one leg, the legendary womanizer adorned with infertility, the bartender with a penchant for divination... And Pavka, the oldest living member of a traditional cross-country Bulán family.

This story actually happened in the region around the city of Sumperk in Jeseniky Mountains in May 1945. The disappearance of Agnes, the German wife of a Czech forester Jan Olsan is a dark mystery. She is the only one who knows who and for what reason is looking for her. It's the end of the war, times are bad and the Czechs are coming back from the inland to the frontier. The guards are forming and soldiers are coming. Fate brings together the outlaw Jan and his German brother-in-law Jurgen who has just returned from the eastern front line. Both men are looking for exactly the same woman and that is Agnes. But Agnes escaped; she is running away through the deep woods followed by the most powerful man of the county. Running away for what she had witnessed. The fatality of the relationship between Agnes and Jan can only be learned in the mountains on this thorny journey.

The last drop for Jan's resolution is the voluntary death of his father-in-law, whose strength and patience ran dry. Grandma made decisions about Grandpa's life, old age as well as the funeral. Jan is sure that he and his wife Olga are on the same route. He recalls his past life when he used to have his own will and dreams and he wants to live again with dignity and freedom. He longs to control his own life again. And his solution is escape from the present life. In this movie we watch, in parallel ,the fates of Jan's married daughters Olinka and Alenka and his sons-in-law Erik and Pepík.

August 2015, a courtroom in Rostov-on-Don. A man is peering through the bars of his cage, his eyes reveal that his nerves are about to snap. Today he will be handed down a sentence to which he must submit: 20 years’ imprisonment in Siberia for terrorism. The man is Oleg Sentsov, a film director and Maidan activist born in Simferopol in the Ukraine. He is charged with leading an anti-Russian terrorist movement and having planned attacks on bridges, power lines and a monument of Lenin. Sentsov defends himself, courageously and without flinching. He responds to the verdict with an emphatic denial of his crimes and instead accuses the accusers themselves ...

When Your mum is a Witch, be careful what You play with

A moving account, in his own words, of the personal life and work of the brilliant Czech filmmaker Miloš Forman (1932-2018): his tragic childhood, his major contribution to the cultural movement known as the Czech New Wave, his exile in Paris, his troubled days in New York, his rise to stardom in Hollywood; a complete existence in the service of cinema.

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Over the course of one year, this film follows the life of an ordinary Pyongyang family whose daughter was chosen to take part in Day of the Shining Star (Kim Jong-il's birthday) celebration. While North Korean government wanted a propaganda film, the director kept on filming between the scripted scenes. The ritualized explosions of color and joy contrast sharply with pale everyday reality, which is not particularly terrible, but rather quite surreal.

Two 12-year-old boys use cameras to document their worlds.

Karol, an ordinary young man, runs into a much older man, whom he believes to be a Red Spider, the terrifying serial killer, prowling the streets of Cracow in 1960s. Karol becomes obsessed with the man and spies on him.

The most dangerous former operative of the CIA is drawn out of hiding to uncover hidden truths about his past.

Addi, a gifted boy raised by a clairvoyant mother, decides to adopt a bullied misfit into his gang of outsiders. Left to their own devices, the boys discover aggression, violence, loyalty, and love.

Constance, 1410. Marie, daughter of the richest bourgeois of the city, is on the eve of marrying a prestigious lawyer, son of an earl. Although the compromise fills with pride the girl's father, anxious to ennoble, Marie is not just convinced about her fiancé, who she has only seen twice. Her suspicions are confirmed tragically on the eve of the wedding when, after signing the marriage contract, a stranger breaks into the house ensuring that Marie has slept with other men in exchange for gifts, like a vile harlot. From that moment, the life of the girl will give a terrible unexpected turnaround. Alone, with his reputation ruined, she will have no choice to survive than partnering with a prostitute and lying on the roads.