Some Secrets

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.

At the end of the 1960s, when the air is filled with rock-and-roll and student rebellions are changing the world, the older of two brothers joins a prestigious newsroom of the public radio broadcaster. Not long after, he finds himself in the middle of a dangerous conflict between journalists and the secret service.

The nurse Helga meets Baltic nobleman Arno when he's wounded in the Russo-Finnish war. They have a short but passionate affair before Arno is called back to the front and dies. Helga has a daughter, Dorli, as a result of the affair and they have to struggle to survive after the Red Army wins the war.

Slacker Maurice Fadinar wasted his whole inheritance and the only way out of this situation, as it seems, to marry Helen Nonankur - daughter of a wealthy farmer. At the last meeting with his mistress in a nearby forest Fadinar's horse eats straw hat which belongs to a married lady, spending time in the company of young and hot Lieutenant Emil. Emil literally puts a knife to Maurice throat - or the lady will get back the exact same hat immediately, or he will arrange such a scandal that no wedding will not happen ...

Juraj, a Slovak artist living in Prague, takes stock in his life, realizing that his days pass without purpose. He lives a carefree life. But now he has to choose between two women, between the city and the country, and between creative work and craftsmanship. He has a passion for art but he also has to make a living. Through his relationships with close people, he grows aware of his position and this knowledge helps him to live a more fulfilling and better life.

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.

The heroes of this absurd comedy, full of confusion and humor are Dzharda Zemanek and Frantisek Liska.

The director of films for kids called Bonzurka together with her loyal assistants Drahuska and Honza are looking for the actors for a new movie "The Knee". Children for this movie should not be afraid and shy and they must have talent for acting. Thus the scouting is quite difficult. The most difficult is to find an actress for a main character who lost her hair after a serious illness and now has to spent the whole holiday in the countryside with a bald head resembling a knee. Although the makeup artist does his best an artificial baldness does not solve anything. From the selected little girls only the self-assertive Rosemary has the guts to let her long hair to be cut and shave off her head.

In 1951, the well-known Czech actress Jiřina Štěpničková receives a letter from Austria from director František Čáp, who has recently emigrated. He invites her to the West and promises her roles in theater and film. She decides to seize the opportunity and flee. Together with a small group of people and her young son Jirka, she entrusts herself to a smuggler and embarks on a risky journey across the border. But something goes wrong. They are caught. Everything had been planned in advance. The smuggler himself is a member of the StB. But that's only the beginning.

Salzburg, Germany, 2000. The elderly Czech actress Lída Baarová tells a journalist the tumultuous story of her rise to fame in 1930s Berlin and her passionate relationship with the sinister Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda of the Third Reich.

Four old friends decide to shake up their unhappy, monotonous lives with a friendly bet and set off a series of unexpected events.

Czechoslovakia, 1941. As the war continues, Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich arrives in Nazi-occupied Prague and establishes a regime of terror that will force freedom fighters to act. But the price to pay will be too high.

Joseph K. awakes one morning, to find two strange men in his room, telling him he has been arrested. Joseph is not told what he is charged with, and despite being "arrested," is allowed to remain free and go to work. But despite the strange nature of his arrest, Joseph soon learns that his trial, however odd, is very real, and tries desperately to spare himself from the court's judgement.

In 1940s Prague, a former Nazi prisoner returns to run his posh hair salon and struggles with family, the rise of communism and his past.

Head of the famous pencil corporation tries to make his 16 year old granddaughter ready to take his place.

A mentally handicapped young man decides to leave the security of his family in order to search for the purpose of his existence; whether it is freedom, sexual experience, or death.

Do you also love shopping? Does the word sale make your heart beat faster? Shopaholic Klára feels the same way. A shopping-obsessed forty-something hits the sales with such passion that she doesn't even notice her husband finding a younger model during her shopping marathon. With a bruised ego and without her successful husband's credit card, Klára starts over from scratch. She's looking for a new job, a new man, but most of all, herself.

30 years of freedom = 30 authors = 30 minutes of films. A unique project of Reflex magazine and Czech Television, which in honor of the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution reflects many forms and understanding of freedom. Various personalities of the Czech cultural sphere have made their minute films.

Unlike any other opera, the so-called Beggar's Opera is not just one composition, but a lineage of adapted compositions, beginning with the original hugely successful 1728 political satire written by Englishman John Gay. Composers and writers have penned variations on it ever since. The most famous of these was A Threepenny Opera by Bertholt Brecht and Kurt Weill. Some things these compositions share in common is their setting among the poor and criminal classes, and the roguish character Macheath. This production is based on an adaptation of Gay's original by Vaclav Havel the freedom-fighter, writer and philosopher who became the first (and only) president of the united post-communist country of Czechoslovakia, and it retains many traces of its theatrical origins. Film reviewers were not too tolerant of what they called "slavish adherence" to the noted Czech writer's stage production, but theater, philosophy and history buffs may feel otherwise.

Alice Nellis's small-scale debut tragicomedy spotlights small-town elections. The protagonist, a university student name Jana (Theodora Remundová) who is trying to solve a troubled relationship with a married man, takes her mother's place on the election commission. In the meantime the mother (Iva Janzurová) is going through her own small domestic crisis with her husband (Leos Sucharípa). Thanks to excellent acting performances and restrained direction, the film convincingly outlines interpersonal relations and their light social overtones.

A four-story omnibus depicting different Czech slices-of-life from the titular city.

A fairy tale about a kingdom where the clever and wise must be given an "extra cog" so that the stupid can rule and steal. Prince Louis, however, manages to use the extra wheelbarrow brilliantly and outsmart the fools and thieves.

A Christmas comedy-fairy tale in which Prince Leopold and Princess Josephine defy fate by vowing never to marry. When a time-travel adventure to the future goes awry, they must fight for their lives and their kingdom, only to discover, as in all fairy tales, that destiny has other plans.

Tony has been glowing since the day he was born and it causes him a lot of trouble. Just before the Christmas, a new odd girl with thick glasses moves into Tony’s house. Shelly has a strange way of expressing herself. Tony is fascinated by her but he is also being cautious at first. Together with Shelly’s flashlight, they explore their house and they are slowly getting to know each other. The kids have to join all their efforts to figure out who’s behind the circuit of dark cracks that sucks out all the light bulbs, even the daylight. It must be because of the ​“Spirit of the house”. A film about being different, about friendship, and first loves… But above all about light and darkness.

Hana is a psychologist and a thoroughly independent woman. Her unemployed husband, jealous of his wife, finds a younger girlfriend, but their teenage son Honzik is frustrated; everyone ignores him. Hana's patient Eva, an attractive middle-aged woman, is having problems with her 25-year-old son; she is in love with her son's friend and her son is offended by her behavior. To complete the circle, he falls in love with Hana and Honzik is utterly disgusted by their affair. Another of Hana's patients is Dub, a millionaire who can have pretty much anything, or anyone, he wants. He wants Hana. But he can't have her.

Bio-pic about Czech composer Antonin Dvoraák at the height of his career. Dvorák learns that his love and lifelong muse is ill and must return to her side.

The story of a young woman who takes it upon herself to save her brothers and rid them of a curse which they were put under by their mother.

Theodora Remundová’s documentary portrait looks at Iva Janžurová’s dramatic and comedic roles in both film and theater, as well as the roles she has played in her family and in social and political life. The director (Janžurová’s daughter) has created a film filled with the truthfulness, sincerity, and capacity for self-reflection of a woman who has devoted her life to acting. The use of clearly staged scenes is combined with an openly acknowledged effort to avoid the kinds of clichés usually found in biographical documentaries to create an organic whole that provides an overview of Janžurová’s pivotal roles while also sharing highly personal and intimate moments from her life. Vít Kořínek (kviff.com)