Czech films - short

(Trans)formation. From child to woman to man. You’re on the edge, full of doubts, who wouldn’t be? And you lack a way to cope when you’re queer. You try to find it and discover you may have grown up long ago. For the first time, you view your childhood from above, one foot still inside. This film was made during the 2025 My Street Films workshop under the guidance of Marika Pecháčková.This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

The layering of memories of four witnesses takes shape as a self-ironic fossil of a town disappearing under the weight of coal mining. When home falls, what is it that we wish to preserve?

The amnion – the fetal membrane protecting the embryo – becomes a metaphor in the film for an intimate space where pain can be shared and a path to healing sought. This sensitive portrait of three women whose lives have been marked by sudden separation is carried from the outset by a meditative soundtrack that shapes an environment in which personal experience becomes expressible. Ritual gestures – traditional costumes, cooking together, hugging – create a protective shell that allows pain not only to be expressed and shared, but also transformed.“True healing means opening yourself up to the truth of your life.” – from the film’s accompanying material

The film is an artistic reflection on the gentrification of Prague’s District 7, Holešovice. In this utterly captivating piece, an entire building takes off into the sky, lifted by inflatable balloons.

“Bardo” is a Buddhist term for the state between death and rebirth, when a person's consciousness leaves the body and seeks a new form. Viera Čákanyová had a similar experience during dark therapy. Her short experimental film is an attempt to translate this transcendental experience, an encounter with another dimension of being, into images and words that are understandable even to those who have not descended into their own subconscious. While colours flow and textures blend into abstract images generated by artificial intelligence, the soundtrack features ambient music and an associative stream of the director's thoughts and feelings. The metaphysical journey does not lead to clear answers. However, it opens up space for perceiving what transcends language, reason, and the common understanding of reality. “I can't decide between being and non-being, action and inaction. I have been stuck in this dilemma my whole life.” — quote from the movieBefore the screening on October 28 in the DIOD hall, there will be a launch of a new book by theorist Jana Dudková entitled Člověk na okrAI: Postantropocén Viery Čákanyovej. The book is published by the Slovak Film Institute's publishing department.

The film explores the fragile quest for masculinity in the modern world. A group of men undergoes a course designed to permanently transform their approach to life, to women, and to themselves.

The film is a space for the meeting of two places, between which the director seeks a connection. She attempts to embrace the roots from which she had to distance herself in order to truly breathe. The film explores different worlds and the tension between tradition and the desire for freedom.

A film about how neither time nor distance can stop a reunion and the fulfillment of a dream. After ten years, former classmates meet again to discover the gulf that has grown between them – and see if they can come together once more. The beat as a weapon, the lyrics as a manifesto.This film was made during the 2025 My Street Films workshop under the guidance of Tereza Reichová.This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

This documentary is about illnesses that don’t remain confined to the mind. And when that unravels, the home falls apart too. The film explores the strength of family ties and asks what it means to stand by someone, even when their world seems inaccessible.This film was made during the 2025 My Street Films workshop under the guidance of Marika Pecháčková.

How many doors must a person lock to open what is inside them? A short documentary film that reveals the space behind closed doors and strips one naked.This film was made during the 2025 My Street Films workshop under the guidance of Marika Pecháčková.

Director Allegra Stodolsky decided to continue her grandmother’s work in telling the story of their relative Lisa Fittko. A timely film which reflects upon the importance of the values fought for, which once again are under threat in today’s Europe. In 1930s Berlin, Fittko became politically active at a young age and joined leftist youth resistance, fighting against the rise of the Nazis. In using archival footage, re-enactment and the voice of Lisa Fittko herself, this documentary tells the story of the courage of a young woman who understood that freedom is not a guarantee and who chose to resist rather than stay silent in the face of oppression. “A woman who came of age during the rise of the fascist regime and chose to remain aware in the wake of fear.”

Two granddaughters, born twenty years apart, connected by shared memories of their grandmother. A ballad about fleeting memories and lasting emotions. What was it like before, and what’s it like now? How to make peace with it all?This film was submitted to the My Street Films Award competition.This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

The voice-over of this intimate, visually delicate video confession describes physically experienced bouts of anxiety, panic, and radical loss of self-confidence that bring the author to the very edge of existence. It is precisely this place, where everything loses its meaning and urgency, that allows her not only to let go and fall, but also to grab and hold on again.“Hanging in There is an intimate account of the inner struggle between the pressure to be strong, to have everything under control, and the need to allow oneself to feel and fail. Sometimes, the greatest strength comes precisely at the moment when we allow ourselves to give up.” — from the film’s accompanying material

Rhythm, routine, and merging with the water… Swimmer David prepares every day for the upcoming competitions. This reportage immerses itself in his world – a space of focus where breath, touch, and rhythm take precedence, and where sight gives way to other senses.

Imagine a group of friends who met through the climate movement. For several years, you have fought alongside others for a fairer future, but little has significantly changed, leaving you somewhat exhausted. Now, you go away for a weekend at a cottage to rest—and during that time, you find yourselves in an apocalypse for a single day. A collective film, a first-year exercise at the Department of Documentary Film, exploring friendship in the shadow of an uncertain future.

Preparation for an exhibition, the rush, and the invisible work. A first-year exercise from the Department of Documentary Film at FAMU, “Workflow.” Reproductive work is the supportive, maintenance, and caring activity that enables productive and creative work to exist. The term emerged in discussions about the functioning of households and the unpaid labor predominantly carried out by women. However, reproductive work can be found wherever something needs to be maintained in an organized way. It is generally not perceived as attractive or prestigious and often leads to burnout – it is extraordinarily demanding, yet remains invisible.

For several decades, Jaroslav Kořán has been associated with his own percussive instrument, the dreamers' astronomical clock, and other projects between experimentation and ambient music. The film Magical Movements is 100% cinematic-ambient, but it also represents the purity and courage of a personal perspective. The viewer's feeling of being surrounded is enhanced by multi-channel sound. “Each fragment is a micro-story that composes our life perceptions and together forms the essence of the observer's memory. The film acts as a painting with living photography and evokes wonder at the everyday magical side of reality,” says the author.Magical Movements are presented together with Jan Šípek's film Solstice in the block Czech Ambient Film. Both films, which we are premiering, are the surprising results of acoustic experimentation on the Czech music scene. At the same time, they significantly transfer the specific features of ambient music to the film medium: hypnotism, a different speed of time, contemplation of the details of the world and its perceived unity.

Giants of glass and steel, rising before our very eyes. Symbols of a new era, proud of speed and convenience. But what have we sacrificed for this life of perfection? What have we left behind beneath these gleaming giants of modernity? And what parts of ourselves remain buried there as well? This film was made during the 2025 My Street Films workshop under the guidance of Marika Pecháčková.This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

Mājā – a Sanskrit term denoting a veil, illusion, or deceptive reflection that conceals the true nature of reality while simultaneously creating it. The film translates this ancient metaphor into slowly flowing black-and-white images: mesmerizing details, alternating light and shadow, flowing water that melts on the girl's face like a translucent veil. The central symbol of the film is a mirror cube – both a deception and a gateway, in which reality shatters into a dimension of reflections and opens up a space for quiet contemplation. “Through this visual meditation, I am searching for a way to come to terms with the impermanence of the world and find harmony in it—not as an escape, but as a deeper acceptance.” — from the film’s accompanying material

Is “sousída” coming over again today? Of course, at eleven as usual. This film captures the essence of the friendship between my grandmother and her neighbour, who’ve met for coffee twice a day for over twenty years, chatting about whatever comes to mind.This film was made during the 2025 My Street Films workshop under the guidance of Tereza Reichová.

A four-minute stop-motion animation composed of photographs, watercolors, and fungal pigments brings to life the imagery of mushrooms in an endless array of shapes and forms. With exaggeration and humor, it allows a fascinating mycological universe to grow, evoking the infinitely ramified, mysterious world of mycelium and its hidden communication. “What do you do when your world starts to fall apart? I go for a walk, and if I’m really lucky, I find mushrooms. Mushrooms pull me back to my senses, not just – like flowers – through their riotous colors and smells but because they pop up unexpectedly, reminding me of the good fortune of just happening to be there.” — Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushrooms at the End of the World (Princeton University Press, 2015), p. 1.

Two narrative and aesthetic levels—a stylized studio room with a horror vibe that the fictional Nora can't leave, and a voyeuristic handheld camera recording a nervous girl in a real setting—connect the main character's body and experience with sexualized violence. A variation on Ibsen's woman, whose story is taken over and rewritten by a man, creates a counterpoint to the image of the contemporary heroine, who speaks for herself falteringly and painfully and refuses to be silenced.“We will never see all the fragments, nor will the story affect us in the same way as in big movies; we may be a little confused. Nora will not become our perfect, strong heroine, yet she invites us to share with her a sad walk through the city and a glimpse of that strange room.” — from the film’s accompanying material

This adaptation of the storyboard L’amore è un lepidottero (1941) by Italian artist and experimental filmmaker Bruno Munari contrasts dreamy melodrama set against the backdrop of war with the giallo aesthetics of Italian slasher films. The result is a rapid collage that combines computer animation, improvised shots, archival material, and images generated by artificial intelligence. Each element speaks a different visual language, but together they create a paradoxical “handmade” aesthetic in which technology clashes with nostalgia.“The film's process mirrors reports of Silicon Valley giants pirating terabytes of historical resources and destroying millions of physical books to feed their machines. While their AI garbage pollutes our environment, Replica deliberately processes problematic historical material and purifies it using contemporary tools.” — author's explanation

The film is based on video diary entries that the authors shared on their journey from Brazil/Peru to Florida. The juxtaposition of images of everyday life on both sides of America, connected by a single sea, is accompanied by text fragments in Czech and Spanish. These refer to Operation Condor, during which the US supported dictatorships in Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as to the vision of “colored parachutes” by Brazilian thinker and activist Ailton Krenak, who calls on us to use our creativity at the end of the world to make parachutes with which to delay the fall.“So maybe we need to invent the parachute. Not to eliminate the fall, but to invent and manufacture millions of colorful, playful, and even pleasant parachutes.” Source: Krenak, Ailton. Ideias para adiar o fim do mundo / Ideas to Postpone the End of the World. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2019.

Who are the people caught halfway between art and school, past and present? Their experiences include both student and teacher roles, balancing craft, teaching, and life, while pondering what legacy we will leave behind.This film was made during the 2025 My Street Films workshop under the guidance of Kateř Tureček.This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

“No one can afford to live here,” says a Roma woman at a new complex. In a place called the Bronx stands a house with a chip-controlled entrance. My grandma once lived here but when she returns, she no longer recognizes it. The city attracts investors but is it losing life?This film was made during the 2025 My Street Films workshop under the guidance ofKateř Tureček.This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

Minimalist musical accompaniment, together with sound design replicas and emotionally charged screams from a crime drama revolving around the character of a deranged criminal, unify the vertical montage of 16mm film strips. The result is a slightly paranoid and self-ironic mélange, which is shaped as a structural film. “This naive 16mm film was created through collective collaboration as part of a 16mm workshop at the Czech Visions 2025 festival. […] The assignment was: create a structural film experiment together. When asked what that was, I replied that it wasn't important, that they should just imagine it or ask AI. I don't know if they did that or what they imagined, but even though the result is a form composed solely of mistakes and errors, it has (at least for me) the unique charm of the unintended.” — Martin Ježek

The third part of the trilogy on representation, art, and politics is a collage of images and quotations with a congenial sound design by Ian Mikyska. While The Signature of Certain Things (2022) explored the role of artworks and institutions in society and The Commodity Catalogue (2023) focused on the commodity nature of artistic creation, the final part offers subversion rather than synthesis: it reveals the contradictions of artistic analysis, which do not lead to a clear political position but instead undermine themselves.“The silent imperative of accumulation now reigns supreme and absorbs everything, including hope. It is a new type of religiosity that interprets the world, permeates everything, and is capable of justifying anything. Even this modest dissenting film, seeking through its pre- declared resignation the possibility of expression, moves nothing, illuminates nothing. It too will be absorbed.”

Sometimes we forget to see the inner beauty in others. Pain from past hurts and conflicts may block it. Yet it can emerge – when we slow down or when the other person leaves. This film is about inner beauty, both theirs and our own.This film was made during the 2025 My Street Films workshop under the guidance of Marika Pecháčková.This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

A composition of collages from magazines, diary sketches, and skin prints, accompanied by a girl's confession in voice-over, tells the story of how the female body is transformed into an object—a mere vessel of male desire—in a whole range of forms of sexual violence: from subtle street harassment to rape. Imaginative stop-motion animation combines drawing, photography, and real objects. “Where does innocence end, and where do remarks begin that can lead to sexual violence? How does this shape her self-perception?” — from the film’s accompanying material

What does it mean to have a twin – and to be an adult twin? This film follows two brothers returning to their hometown where they spent their entire childhood. Through memories and conversations, they reflect on growing up as twins, and what it means to them today.This film was made during the 2025 My Street Films workshop under the guidance of Kateř Tureček.This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF

Paranoid schizophrenia, a complex diagnosis the author has struggled with for two and a half years. This documentary portrays the illness itself, everyday life with this difficult condition, and the painful journey through life.This film was made during the 2025 My Street Films workshop under the guidance of Tereza Reichová.This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

At first glance, what could be more inanimate – and therefore anti-cinematic – than the mineral kingdom? Nora Štrbová challenges this declaration, turning it on its head and making stones into a highly kinetic subject. In this humorous essay film shot in 35 mm, stones are finally given a voice as they observe us, judge us and, above all… put up with us.

The seemingly purely observational fascination with insect bodies is disrupted by a diegetic soundtrack composed of distinctive frequencies to which the observed creatures are exposed. This scientific film experiment, which results in a visual transcription of their auditory responses into colored marks on a speaker, concludes with a tragic punchline.“The film captures how certain insects react to sound frequencies that are also used, for example, in military applications.” — from the film’s accompanying material

Why don’t we tell stories about pain? Are they too intimate, chaotic, “feminine”? Womb+ is a collective testimony of living with endometriosis and chronic pain that resists reproduction rhetoric and patriarchal concepts of the body.This film was made during the 2025 My Street Films workshop under the guidance of Tereza Reichová.