Don’t Be Angry, Ukraine

The Second Republic was relatively short-lived. But those few months were one of the most dramatic and important periods in our history. In 1938 in Munich, all the ideals and values on which Czechoslovakia had been built came crumbling down. Czech society ceased to believe in democracy and began to admire authoritarian fascist governments. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of refugees fled the occupied Sudetenland for what remained of the country, but nobody wanted to take them in. The media was subjected to censorship, and an aggressive strain of anti-Semitism appeared among the Czech population. And on top of it all, there were further territorial demands by Germany, Poland, and Hungary, and separatist tendencies in Slovakia.

Documentary filmmaker Pavel Štingl engaged in a three-year dialogue with sculptor Jaroslav Róna as he worked on one of the world’s largest bronze sculptures. The film also offers a chance to get to know an exceptional artistic individual and a member of the Hard-Heads art group.

Nicknamed “the Czech Locomotive,” Emil Zátopek held 18 world records and is best known for winning the 5 km, 10 km and marathon races at the Olympic Games in Helsinki. David Ondříček brings his grand successes back to life through interviews with his family, friends, and former competitors.

A pictorial "féerie" (fairy play) documentary evoking the long-gone landscape of the Prague periphery around Botič. Becoming a model for confrontation with its modern appearance is this unfinished screenplay by director Jiří Lehovec, photographs by Josef Sudek and pictures by Kamil Lhoták.

This documentary film about people who "no longer have to pretend that they don't exist" was made as a gift from Czech Television for the Jedlička Institute for the Disabled to mark the institute's 100th anniversary. Over the course of just under an hour, we see and experience the everyday joyful, comical, embarrassing, and extraordinary situations of several people who have one thing in common: the institute that everybody calls by its nickname "Jedle" ("fir"). What kind of institute is it? How has it changed over the past 100 years? What has it given to and gained from the people who have passed through it? The various micro-stories culminate in a wedding and birth. Most of the protagonists are in wheelchairs, but that doesn't keep them from cutting loose.

Energetically sustainable communities are unique and far between in our corner of the world. The standard situation is that the biggest chunk of money from municipal budgets reserved to pay for gas and electricity, goes to energy giants and monopolies, and other options are not even considered.

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.

Fifty years ago, they lived through the invasion of Czechoslovakia; now they revisit moments captured on film. Věra Křesadlová and her young sons quickly left to be with her husband Miloš Forman in Paris. Petr Semerád witnesses soldiers shooting into crowds of people by the main radio station in Prague. Czech Television’s documentary series on the 50th anniversary of the 1968 invasion was inspired by the popular Israeli series Capturing the Moment, which has been adapted in eight different countries.

This film is a portrayal of one of the leading Czech directors, Miloš Forman. Forman, a creator and filmmaker behind the Oscar-winning film, Amadeus, and Flying Over the Cuckoo's Nest, an adventurous man with great charisma who's not afraid to doubt himself. This documentary by directors Helena Třeštíková and Jakub Hejna summarizes Forman's life journey where both fame and the wounds of fate collide with personal discovery and uncertainty. It is a collage of often unseen, private and official archives, as well as an autobiographical recollection spoken by the director's son, Petr Forman.

They like to travel and take pictures. But how to use a camera as a professional photographer and take photos that blow your mind? Jan Šmíd, who will be our guide in Budapest, asked his friend, photo reporter Jan Šibík, to help him. Together, they will explore Secessionist coffee houses as well as trendy bars and night clubs that spring up in the courtyards of old and abandoned burgher houses of the Hungarian capital.

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.

The current, widespread bark beetle infestation shows clearly that the spruce monoculture in the Czech landscape is a great problem. And yet, spruces are being replanted in places where forests should never be. The illegal planting of forests is a trend that people involved in environmental protection have been observing for several years now. Owners of land classified as meadows and pastureland are planting woodlands, primarily spruce, in defiance of the law, thus driving out endangered species of plants and animals, changing the traditional character of the landscape, and making it less attractive for visitors.