Věra Plívová-Šimková

The 50th anniversary of the Barrandov studios was celebrated with a spectacular show: many directors and other important people gathered in the expensive decorations of the Variety Theatre auditorium (built for the Circus Humberto series). They smiled and showed well-deserved relaxation after a job well done in managing socialist cinema. Vladimir Sís interspersed this with excerpts from films, mainly his own and also a little of others who had worked on the "Hill of Dreams".

A poignant overview of how short life can be, this interesting drama from Czech director Vojetch Jasny is divided into four separate segments. In the first skit, a young child's impressions are observed as his newborn baby sister becomes a part of the family. In the second, a young woman falls in love for the first time one summer, and in the third, a tough, older peasant woman battles against the farming cooperatives. Finally, in the last segment, everything comes full circle as a woman who is about to become a grandmother dies while her daughter-in-law has not yet given birth.

Three friends - Tomás, Hubert and Jozka - are boys growing up in a little town. Tomás lives with his aunt Apolena and uncle Václav. Tomás is a boy with lots of ideas that often end up getting him into trouble not only with his teachers and aunt, but with the other inhabitants of the town as well. He has a crush on his schoolmate Blanka and for her sake he decides to try to get the prize for the best pupil in the school.

Children from the village Bystrá are awaiting a nice and thrilling weekend. On Saturday they will play the championship football match with the nonresident boys from the village Skuhrov, on Sunday there will be the funfair with merry-go-round, swings and stalls with dainties. The members of the family of the merry-go-round man are brother and sister Janek and Zaneta Mareks whom the children have known since the last year. At that time Zaneta made friends with girls and Janek, an excellent football player, has been a welcome support of the football club.

A man boards on a tram together with a naked boy. Somebody has stolen the boy's clothes when he was out bathing, leaving him with not even change for the tram. The man has taken care of him and is taking him home. At first nobody notices them but as soon as the people realize they are seeing something out of the ordinary they begin to react to the situation. Some are content with the simple explanation as to why the boy is naked. Others are agitated, for they see the whole situation as something unseemly. An ordinary incident, which might have been passed over in silence, results in a heated argument that turns into a fight. More and more people join in the fight until the police are forced to intervene.

Sliding, skiing, snow forts, snowball fights, in short, winter is the right season for the children from the village under the Šibeničák hill to have fun. Their leader has always been Zrzek, the son of the local undertaker. But then Myšák, whose father had become the chairman of the agricultural cooperative, moved into the village, and he pulled all the boys to his side, especially because he could take the boys on the horses his father sometimes lent him. Proud Zrzek left the group rather than submit to Myshak. Only his friend Barbora remained faithful to him, helping him catch birds, especially the proverbial black raven.

The winter Krkonoše Mountains have many pitfalls, especially if you are overly concerned about their treacherous splendour. The somewhat unheroic hero of this clumsily and uninterestingly shot film is a mail carrier who volunteers for the Mountain Service. Only in a blizzard does he overcome his fear of avalanches when he saves the lives of two hikers caught off guard by the suddenly deteriorating weather...

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.

It is the summer holiday and little Mísa Horák has taken a few animals from the school's so-called "Corner of Living Nature" home to care for. But when he brings home two Angora rabbits, a starling, a little monkey, a tortoise and a small crocodile, his parents order him to take them away. He is helped by Káta, who offers to place the animals in the child's room of her family's apartment. Mísa leaves for her friend where the animals will hopefully be able to stay. Káta goes shopping. In the meantime, Káta's younger sister Minka wakes up and begins to play with the animals, who gradually run off in disarray.

In a wooden hut used as a canvassing center, members of a children's puppet-theatre group are rehearsing for a production about a journey to the Moon. The goings-on inside the hut and outside are being closely followed by amateur detective Pepik Barnabás. He, however, is the first to be under suspicion when a trunk containing puppets goes missing. The children follow him but, when they catch up with him, they discover he hasn't got it. Pepík offers to help them in their search.

Matej and Jenda, two of the eight children of the poor Pelc family in the Giant Mountains, help in a glass works where the oldest brother Francek works. They hide into a tub not to be seen by supervisors checking on the ban of children labor. They miss the Epiphany carol (songs and treats door-to-door) and all neighbor village boys again on them in all the neighbor houses. On their way home they are passed by a fast moving big man with a large backpack. The boys send the customs officers, who are pursuing the strange man, to the opposite direction. The man then thanks them and rewards them the next day. Based on fairy-tales and legends the boys think the man is Krakonos (the giant living and ruling in the Giant Mountains).

Tomás lives in a very small Czech town and is a nature lover and a birdwatcher. He struggles to keep the forests he loves clean and constantly fights his "archenemy" whose sister and Tomás's classmate is secretly in love with him.

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Roman Hlava grew up with his diplomat parents in Latin America where he had been home-schooled by his over doting mother. The over indulgence of affection and praise has given the boy an over confidence. This is quickly squashed by his new peers when the family returns to the Czech Republic. This leads to neurotic tics and the nickname Mrkácek the 'Blinker.' A stay at a children's camp provides new friends, acceptance, an appreciation of nature, a new outlook on life, and loss of the tics.

In the pulmonary sanatorium, patients live out their small fates. But not everyone takes a responsible approach to their illness. For example, a young student falls in love, the lovers even take a secret flight, but the young man's condition deteriorates dramatically because of it.

The main character of the story, which is a sensitive probe into the soul of a little girl, is five-year-old Kačka Znamínková, who lives with her parents in a picturesque village in the foothills. And because she has a very vivid imagination, she becomes not only a princess with a golden star on her forehead, but also a princess on a pea or a crocodile hunter. Together with her parents, she is expecting a new sibling to be born any day, but she will only be happy if it is a little sister. She doesn't even want to hear about a little brother. But in the end, instead of the expected little sister, she gets two brothers, so...

A 17-year-old student unexpectedly gives up her newborn for adoption and must confront the emotional fallout, family tensions and societal shifts of the tumultuous post-revolution era as she seeks to understand her choices and find her own way in life.

A story about childhood - real and the dreams. After finding a magic shell young Kačenka uses it to model her family life on the sea shore.

A family film from two legends of Czech children film, Vera Plívová-Simková and Drahomíra Králová. The starting point for the action is a village family with two dogs: their Dalmatians, bearing the legendary names of the movie's title, experience dreamlike visions of life in a "dog kingdom".

A movie about Czechoslovak border guards trying to arrest the famous escapee called "King of the Sumava".