Jan Novák
Writing
Known For

Capturing the dark humor of Czech author Michal Viewegh's chronicle of life after the Velvet Revolution, this black comedy chronicles three decades in the life of a small Czech family. While the original novel centered on the protagonist Kvido from his conception through his adulthood, first time director Petr Nikolaev and screenwriter Jan Novak changed the focus to his parents Milena, an extremely self-effacing lawyer who acts on stage in her spare time, and Ales, a rather aimless government worker who tends to drift wherever the wind takes him. The lives of Ales and Milena change dramatically following the Russian invasion of Prague in 1968.
The Wonderful Years That Sucked

Slovakia, on the eve of the outbreak of World War II. The family of the young Jewish Martin Friedmann gathers to celebrate his bar mitzvah and make a solemn promise that they will all meet again a year later around the same table; but the storms of war and anti-Semitic fanaticism will lead each of them down very different paths.
Broken Promise

Anna, a 16 year-old girl from the sticks, trades her military education for life in the big city Running away to Prague opens a whole new world where she drinks her first cappuccino and meets the kind of people she has only seen in movies.
Whisper

Set over a two-decade period in a tiny Central European village, this drama not only chronicles a couple's tragic star-crossed love, it also serves as a metaphor for the tragedy of lost traditions. After opening in the snowy wilds as two people spectacularly die, the story jumps back 20 years as young Verona prepares to marry. Unfortunately, voracious wolves descend upon the ceremony and all but Verona and her courageous 10-year-old brother-in-law Goran, who saves her, perish. That day, Verona gives birth to Veronika and promptly betroths her daughter to the heroic Goran. A decade passes and on Veronika's 10th birthday, her engagement to Goran is formally announced at a big party. Festivities halt when a troupe of female circus performers and their sly employer Madina show up. Veronika soon finds herself more interested in Madina's young son Michal than she is in the adult Goran. Meanwhile, the worldly Madina attempts to adjust to life in an old-fashioned village.
An Ambiguous Report About the End of the World

The documentary film uncovers the story of Mašín brothers, which is of the greatest stories of the Cold War. A group of five young men decided to leave the then-communist Czechoslovakia with guns in hand to join the fighting in the then expected war between the West and the East. The year was 1953, and today, through the last witnesses, we follow the 30-day dramatic journey to West Berlin and the subsequent fateful events that happened to her loved ones at home.
Escape to Berlin
No description available.
Citizen Havel Rolls Another Barrel

This quirky documentary follows Vaclav Havel on an eye-opening journey across his native Czechoslovakia in the days before he became president of the Czech Republic. A leading playwright, essayist, intellectual and political dissident in 1985, Havel decides to explore the limits of the secret police by traveling and visiting a variety of friends. Along the way, he's thrown in jail twice and followed by hundreds of undercover cops.