That Moment: Classmates Among the Tanks

In 1994, Alfréd Wetzler and Rudolf Vrba miraculously escaped from Auschwitz, driven by the conviction that they must inform the world about the horrors being committed at the camp. However, they soon discovered that few people were interested in them, as if nobody wanted to know about the Jewish suffering in the factories of death!

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.

The film combines the personal story of famous actor Jan Potměšil with the historical events of 1989. Students and actors had a great influence on the origin and course of the Velvet Revolution. They participated in demonstrations, went on strikes, but mainly tried to inform even the remote regions of what was happening. One of them, Jan Potměšil, paid a high price for this activity – on his return home after meeting up with some miners in Ostrava, he got into a collision with another car. The others escaped unscathed, but he was paralyzed for life. With a strong willpower and positive attitude to life, he managed to return not only to everyday life, but also to his profession.

Professor Josef Koutecký founded, built up and institutionalised a brand new medical field – paediatric oncology – first in Czechoslovakia, later in the Czech Republic. He has been the head of a clinic, a dean and a vice-chancellor and has trained a vast number of paediatric oncologists. But this documentary is not about him as a professor but rather about him as a man. It is not about his successes but about love and faith. It is not about an elderly man but about someone who has always stood upright.

In a new Czech Television cycle, Ondřej Horák follows the journey of exceptional works from studios to exhibition halls – this time the journey of Kateřina Šedá’s UNES-CO project to the International Biennial of Fine Arts in Venice.

Petr Kotík is one of the world’s most distinguished and renowned authors and tireless promoters of European and American contemporary music. A composer, conductor and flautist on his way between New York, Prague and Ostrava in the documentary by Adam Oľha.

This documentary about Jan Vodňanský and Petr Skoumal was conceived as a playful account of the life and work of a popular artistic couple who had made a significant contribution to Czech culture during their long career and whose popular work has remained alive and well and continues to inspire long after its downfall.

At age 36, Jakub Hrůša was awarded the Sir Charles Mackerras Prize for his contribution to presenting the work of Leoš Janáček – just a few meters from the place in Brno where the great composer wrote the score to The Makropulos Affair. Exactly one month after receiving the award, Hrůša makes his debut with the Vienna State Opera for a new production of the opera. A documentary about one of the most difficult tasks in the young conductor’s career.

Architect Josef Pleskot can be described as one of the best known and most respected contemporary Czech architects. Pleskot has earned many awards since the 1990s, and his designs regularly represent Czech architecture at international exhibitions.

In December 1989, the "Iron Curtain" that separated the Soviet Bloc from the Western world fell. Cutting the wires from the previously impenetrable borders is probably the most memorable symbol of the continent’s newly acquired freedom. But how did the former Border Patrol Officers see the events at the time? Their main task was not to patrol the borders against dangers from the outside world, but rather to hunt down citizens from Czechoslovakia and other countries of the Soviet Bloc who were trying to escape into the democratic world.  

This six-episode climbing travelogue follows the world's best sports climber as he breaks records. Adam Ondra not only chooses both known and unknown locations in the former Yugoslavia countries, but also travels to Romania, Greece and Albania. He meets with the local walls and climbers who help him identify the most extreme and previously unexplored rocky paths.