Hotel for Strangers

In the 1600s, an overzealous clergy hauls innocent women in front of tribunals, forces them to confess to imaginary witchery, and engages in brutal torture and persecution of their subjects.

This feature film based on the events of 1938 is a chronicle of the futile efforts of the Czechoslovak president Edvard Benes (Jirí Pleskot), politicians and ordinary citizens, to save the independence and the territorial integrity of the state from the advance of Hitler's Germany. On the 29th of March 1938 the leader of the Sudeten Germans Henlein (Werner Ehrlicher) has a meeting with Hitler (Gunnar Möller). Hitler orders him to intensify pressure on the Czechoslovak government. On the 24th of April in Carlsbad, the Sudetendeutsche Partei (Sudeten German Party) decides upon eight demands that are unacceptable to the Czechoslovak President, since they would ultimately lead to the break-up of the Republic. Benes still shows a certain willingness to negotiate, and Henlein resents this. The Germans are determined to make further negotiations impossible through incidents and violence.

Jealous of her vapidly "good" sister's popularity, poisonous Viktoria doses pretty Klara's tea with a slow-acting fatal substance. As the latter grows hysterically weak, the former finds success increasingly compromised by guilt, blackmail, and the pesky need to kill others lest she be exposed.

A group of the bourgeois head for a prominent figure's birthday party. As they venture through the woods and have a picnic, they're suddenly surrounded by some suspicious strangers.

The movie's main storyline follows the life of Otík, a young man, in a tight-knit village community. The sweet-tempered Otík works as an assistant truck driver with Mr. Pávek, his older colleague and practical-minded neighbor. Pávek's family takes care of Otík, whose parents are dead. However, the two coworkers become at odds over Otík's inability to perform even the simplest tasks. Pávek demands that Otík be transferred to assist another driver, who happens to be a choleric and suspicious man named Turek (Turk in Czech). Rather than work with Turek, Otík decides to accept an offer of employment in Prague, but finds he does not fit in to the city life. After discovering that the transfer of Otík to Prague was a trick by a crooked politician to get a deal on Otík's large inherited house, Pávek agrees to give Otík a second chance and retrieves him from the city to resume their work together.

After their young daughter dies suddenly from a viral infection, Marie and Petr struggle to cope with the silence and emptiness left in their apartment. The couple drifts apart as Marie sinks into deep isolation while Petr attempts to distract himself through work and social interactions. Eventually, they decide to try for another child in an effort to move forward and rebuild their fractured relationship.

A fiction piece centered around the Czech resistance to the Nazis.

Czechoslovak comedy film directed by Ladislav Smoljak, about the fictional national hero Jára Cimrman (universal genius, inventor, sportsman, criminalist, poet, writer and philosopher).

Francin, manager of a small-town brewery, has a charming wife whose abundant blonde locks are an adornment to the town. Maryska looks ethereal but loves meat and beer, while Francin is an ascetic. The strict members of the brewery board of directors come to audit the accounts, but are diverted from concentrating on Francin's detailed reports by Maryska, who has organized a pig-killing feast and is ably assisting the butcher. When she invites the old curmudgeons on the board to enjoy the fresh pork, they are too happy to agree. Francin doesn't know whether he is going to get a permanent contract. To make things worse his brother Pepin - eccentric, noisy and garrulous - turns up on an indefinite visit.

The time is 1945-46. 10 year old Eda and his friend Tonda live in a small village outside Prague. In school, their class is so wild and indisciplined that their teacher quits and is replaced by the militant Igor Hnidzo. He is very strict – but also very fair. His weakness though, is his interest in young women.

The film is a metaphor for the Cold War. It depicts two neighbouring nations: peace loving Fortuna and the not so peaceful land of the Steel City.

This Czechoslovakian children’s film takes place during the last days of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The young son of a horse trainer loves nothing more than riding his horse, until he is stricken by polio…

Lemuel Gulliver has had a car accident and continues his journey across the unknown countryside on foot. On the road he finds a dead rabbit dressed like a man and takes a watch from its waistcoat breast pocket. The half-ruined house that he enters reminds Lemuel of his childhood and brings up a painful memory of a dearly loved girl Markéta who was drowned years ago. Gulliver finds himself in Balnibarbi, a country where he doesn't understand the laws and habits and so continually offends against public decency. It is a day when people are ordered to keep their mouths shut and they force their visitor to follow suit. He faces harsh interrogation and finds it difficult to explain that he is not the rabbit Oscar whose watch has been found in his possession.

The likeable and charming Vanda Karhanová has problems in every job because of her appearance. So when she is about to start a new job, she decides to decisively prevent similar problems. She adjusts and dresses in a way that men do not notice her and do not pay attention to her. She has no idea that she will cause even more problems for herself, and not only because she now bears an uncanny resemblance to the millionaire Czech-American Ruth Baretová, who ran away from home to avoid getting married. First, Vanda is mistakenly arrested and ends up in the police station, so she cannot return to work. At the factory, they suspect her of having disappeared with a large sum of money that they had entrusted to her to deposit in the bank. Then the whole situation is complicated by the arrival of the real Miss Baretová.

This futuristic science fiction comedy features an atomic bomb blast that causes women to grow beards and lose the ability to have children. A summit meeting is held at the United Nations, with the proposed solution of building a time machine. The decision is made to travel back in time and murder Einstein, with the hopeful result being that without the noted mathematician's research there will be no atomic bombs.

This film is about life of a family, which lived in Prague since since 1968 to 1980. Father of the family comes from Ukraine and so every year someone from Ukraine to visit this family and to buy something more better than is in Ukraine. As the times go by, the friens of family live in Austria. And now for change the family visit "a better life" in west Europe and they found out how it is to be something second-rate.

On their tenth wedding anniversary, painter František and his wife Jarmila return to their isolated home. While František is content with a quiet, unambitious existence, Jarmila perceives their orderly life as stagnant water rather than true living. What is intended as a private celebration becomes a pivotal moment where an unforeseen event forces František to reveal his true character through his actions.

The invincible agent Cyril Juan Borguette alias W4C has been assigned a mission to go to a hotel in Prague, get hold of a saltcellar with a plan for the military exploitation of Venus hidden in it, and hand it over to the beautiful agent Alice. He will have to compete for the saltcellar with other agents working for the world's various greater and smaller powers. The head of the Prague counter-intelligence unit gets news of agent W4C's mission. Deficient in personnel, he nominates accountant Foustka as agent 13B. Mr Foustka takes his dog Pajda with him and the two head for the airport. Pajda helps him track down agent W4C in a classy hotel that becomes the battleground for the interests and plans of the secret agents from different countries, each trying to get hold of the precious saltcellar.

At the end of the First World War, Nikola Shuhai and his friend from the army desert. On the way home, to the village of Kolochava, they both find refuge with baby Jaga. Jaga mixes them a drink to protect them from the deadly bullets. The bachelors must promise to marry her daughters in exchange for a drink, or they will be punished. Nikola finds his home village in poverty. He stands against the powerful and the rich, and they turn the gendarmes against him. Nikola hides from them in the woods, where he will remain even after the end of the war, because nothing has changed for the villagers. Out of poverty and hopelessness, other men join Nikola and together they raid the wealthy. Nikola distributes the obtained booty to the poor and needy, who see him as their protector and hero.

A colour-printed melodramatic selanca from the beginnings of the organised labour movement in Bohemia... Antonín Zápotocký, the second workers' president, is the author of the literary novel Rozbřesk - the plot is said to be inspired by the fate of his grandmother and mother.

In post-WWII Communist Czechoslovakia, several characters considered bourgeois are sentenced to work in a junkyard for rehabilitation. Among them is a young man who pines for a female convict.

Mr. Dezső and Rezső are selecting the heroes for their new operetta. They represent different tastes and styles, and keep arguing about the casting of the four men and four women.

A story of love and honor that takes place during the mid-nineteenth century during revolutions, as well as economic, political, and social hypocrisy. Two extraordinary but lonely artists share a passionate love, as evidenced by the preserved letters that they exchanged.

Michal, a disillusioned teenager, clashes with his authoritarian father and runs away from home. Adrift in the city, he navigates a restless journey of fleeting encounters while rejecting the rigid values of his parents' generation.

An allegory set in an archetypal Czech village, it tells the story of what happens when a series of mysterious events take place, including the disappearance of the station master. While everything has a rational explanation, collective paranoia takes over and everyone's worst instincts are unleashed. Interrogations, disenfranchisement, and the search for scapegoats ultimately lead to murder. The movie was completed in 1969, but it was banned and not released till 1990, Evald Schorm who died in 1988 never saw it completed.

Three short story omnibus. The main hero and connecting link is Lieutenant Boruvka, created by Lubomír Lipsky. He deals with the murder case between climbers, the death of the dancer in the music theater and the strange disappearance of the mathematics professor.

The film portrays the final days of the most famous Czech authoress, Božena Němcová, who in the mid-19th century dared to live a life free of social constraints.

Mr. Benda, a married father of two children, works for a company that liquidates old banknotes. After one drunken party, he is visited by a painter who tattooed his back in drunkenness the previous night. The image tattooed on Benda’s back is considered the painter’s best work by the professionals.

A very free adaptation of Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus", Goethe's "Faust" and various other treatments of the old legend of the man who sold his soul to the devil. A nondescript man is lured by a strange map into a sinister puppet theatre, where he finds himself immersed in an indescribably weird version of the play, blending live actors, clay animation and giant puppets.

A short documentary about the work of railwaymen and life on the railway.

Princess Julia doesn't want to marry an old prince Hubert so she runs away from home. She meets two old magicians and join the circus, where she meets lovely Franta Kuldan and evil devil performer.

The legendary Eduard Haken as Aquarius in the first television production of the composer's most famous musical-dramatic work.

Three detective stories, three different views of life and death... Collection of three horror short stories.