Don't give up: Climatic prisoners

Martin Rajniš, the “enfant terrible” of Czech architecture, refuses to accept the current state of his field and of society in general. He is just as “terrible” as the French architect Pierre Charles L’Enfant, who designed Washington, D.C., for President Thomas Jefferson. According to one version, the expression “enfant terrible” was inspired by the fact that L’Enfant was extremely difficult to work with. Today, however, it often describes someone original, daring, and direct. The documentary captures Rajniš’s inspirational approach and his working process – both at his studio in Prague and at his country cottage in the village of Maxov in the Jizera Mountains.

Sticking to the asphalt. Zipping through space. Everything in motion. Skateboard! In the gray atmosphere of 1970s and ’80s communist Czechoslovakia, it was something completely new and different. Love at first sight. A never-ending party. Adrenaline. Cult figures of the era’s skateboard scene tell their stories of broken bones, unbroken friendships, and wild rides towards freedom amidst communism.

After its successful documentary film featuring interviews with five abused women, Czech Television takes a look at another side of domestic violence. The stories of the film’s four male protagonists show that although the methods of violence are similar, the victims’ are in a much different position: Violence against men is usually questioned, and their partners, however manipulative and aggressive, are in a much more advantageous position, since the men, as representatives of the supposedly stronger sex, are generally not believed. The film is the first ever documentary to look at this socially taboo subject. 

A documentary look at this current political issue presents unique scenes of life in the annexed territory where foreign journalists and television crews are not allowed. The film is a mosaic portrait of several men and women, whose everyday lives have been affected by the political crisis between Ukraine and Russia. Just as international pressure and sanctions have made the Crimean peninsula a de facto island, so too are the supporters and opponents of Russian annexation isolated (pen)insulas in search of their identity within the sea of a divided society. 

After the successful and Ji.hlava MFDF Award-winning docuseries, Enclosed World, director Karel Žalud returns to prison once again. This time, he follows the story of Dan Lauf, a young warden working in a small prison in Teplice who leaves his pregnant wife for 30 days to help out at the large prison in Stráž pod Ralskem. His personal story shows not only the prison environment and the specific demands of Lauf's profession, but also the problems of the current Czech prison system.

The life of Lída Baarová possesses all the features of a Greek tragedy. Beauty, love, fame, betrayal, rejection, punishment, escape, loss of home, and finally reconciliation at a wise old age. And all this is accompanied by the dramatic political events of the 20th century, which touched everyone, all the more so this women of exceptional beauty, ambition, and fame.

A look at a forgotten chapter in modern Czech history. The “armed fist of the working class,” formed from various factory guard units on the instigation of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, began operating under the guidance of the Central Union Committee in May 1945. After the communist takeover in 1948, the People’s Militia was sent upon orders of the Communist Party to “defend” the borders or to act against students, farmers, the church, demonstrators protesting the currency reform. Their actions against anti-regime gatherings in 1969 resulted in several deaths. They also acted brutally during the demonstrations in Prague in 1988 and 1989.

Three stories about the youngest generation of “digital natives” for whom the Internet became an endless source of entertainment and communication as well as of new dangers. Most today’s children can use a computer or a mobile phone before they learn to tie shoelaces and ride a bicycle. New generations of children who spent much more time in a virtual world than on a playground are growing up all over the world.

Just as we are experiencing the unification of culture and society, so is nature. We are experiencing the greatest ecological collapse of species in recorded history. Birds and plants are disappearing, but perhaps the ones experiencing the greatest decline are butterflies. These insects are so delicate that even the smallest change in the environment can affect their populations. As a result of fields being consolidated and traditional farming becoming abandoned, this once common species has begun to appear much less frequently in the countryside to the point where they’ve become literally stranded on small “islands”. For some species, it has gotten so bad that we can find the “last of the Mohicans” on just one hill. What do butterflies need to survive and what should their habitat look like? 

Few people in Czech culture have influenced so many generations by their versatile talent during their sixty years of their creative career. A stage actor, musician, lyricist, poet, composer, writer, filmmaker, graphic artist, fine artist, theater director, collector – all these professions were, and still are, those of Jiří Suchý, whose life story was captured by Olga Sommerová.

In 1978, Ieva Lesinska was an ordinary university student who lived with her mother in then-Soviet Latvia. Her father worked officially as a translator for the UN in New York, but was also a KGB agent. When Ieva got permission to visit her father in the United States, he told her that he was about to "flee again" with his second wife. Ieva decided to stay with her father. The new family officially became East German emigrants with new identities: Peter and Linda Dorn with their daughter Evelyn. Today, Ieva is trying to reveal the incredible life and strange death of her father, a KGB agent who defected to the CIA, in a feature documentary.

A story of a poor girl Jarka from Cambodia who could not write and read at 12 years of age and lived in degrading conditions. She had to work hard, taking care of her siblings, suffering from hunger and often even physical abuse. But then someone appeared in her life – Tamara, a Czech woman, who was visited in her dreams by her dead cousin and asked to take care of his daughter born in Cambodia and so far kept secret.