František Daniel
Writing
Known For

Depiction of Czech students in the 1950s. The kids are less interested in communism than in rock n’ roll. Czech authorities deemed the work decadent and subversive, which led to the director being kicked out of film school.
An Easy Life
The commander of the military training camp, newly promoted Major Cibulka, keeps his subordinates in line. Because of an unexpected emergency, he refuses to give leave even to the young lieutenant Zabran, whose wife is due to give birth any day. In addition, a false article appears in an army newspaper claiming that Zábrana is an example of a bad company commander. In fact, it is he who has the best leadership skills. Fearing for his wife's health, Zábrana disobeys orders and departs for Prague at night to visit his wife in the maternity ward. Cibulka decides to push the envelope even harder, and drives Zábrana, whom he has long disliked, before the prosecutor.
September Nights

A young orphan who lives with her grandmother in a large Virginian home infatuates herself with the voices of Joan d'Arc. Her French nanny seeks out the help of a rich suitor to take her and the orphan away when she realizes that the grandmother cannot offer the orphan the love that she needs.
Zelly & Me

May 1945. On the outskirts of Prague, ordinary people meet Soviet soldiers-liberators with tears of joy in their eyes. In the early days of the lull, someone sadly recalls a pre-war life; someone unexpectedly meets his love; someone is returning from enemy dungeons looking hopefully into the future; and someone, having moved from a tank into a Czech tram, warmly recalls his craft as a car driver... These days, all those who survived the Great War fire swear an oath to keep peace on Earth forever, honoring the memory of those who gave their lives for simple human happiness.
May Stars
A simple print worker selflessly cares for his sick mother. He spends all his free time with her and the only hobby he indulges in from time to time is model railways. But the arrival of a beautiful girl changes everything. The hero suddenly falls into a love infatuation, not knowing how to cope with the conflict of his unrecognised feelings and his concern for his mother...
Klec pro dva

An anthology of three absurd, ironic tales inspired by Čapek’s “Tales from One Pocket” and “Fables and Side Stories,” each showing uncanny forces disrupting ordinary lives: in Krejčík’s “Glorie,” a gentle clerk is haunted by a sudden halo; the other two segments by Mach and Makovec similarly blend everyday routines with ironic, supernatural twists.
Of Things Supernatural

The Czech feature film, based on the book of the same name by J. Sosnar-Gazda, focuses on teenagers. The hero of the film is a boy named Jurášek from the Moravian Slovácko region, who helped the partisans during the war. He confirmed that his father was with the partisans and went to the forest at night to follow him when the partisans were expecting the Soviet paratroopers to jump. Jurášek finds a paratrooper who had been blown aside by the wind and finds a suitable shelter for him where he could heal his injured leg. Jurášek continues to help the partisans a lot. He informs them about the upcoming raid in the village and thus saves the Soviet paratrooper from being captured. When he then accompanies the paratrooper into the forest to a place from where he could safely broadcast, and when he says goodbye to him, he gets into a firefight with the Germans together with him and his bravery stands up well in it.
Jurášek

Several bittersweet stories set in a Prague apartment building.
At the Terminus

The sad hero of the story, Petr, an ordinary lawyer in a construction company, is crowded into a small apartment in Žižkov with his wife and grandparents, desperately struggling with the lack of money. One day he offers an old man a seat on a crowded trolley bus and is generously rewarded for his good deed, for the unknown old man is a fabulous grandfather. He gives Peter a magic bell and the opportunity to make three wishes, but the first two slip through his fingers. For the third, the astonished man must take time to think...
Three Wishes
A film about life in the Czech borderlands after the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans.
It’s Not Always Cloudy

Miroslav Hornicek is a deluded young man who is convinced he is Faust incarnate. This turn of mind leads to some ludicrous situations, such as when he believes a woman is really a cat. Before he can be rounded up and interned wherever they keep people with this type of a problem, love enters his life and the clouds that obscured his vision begin to dissipate.
When the Woman Butts In

A comedy based on the novel of Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Svejk happens during the World War I. I Dutifully Report: In the introduction to the second part of the film adaptation of Hašek's novel The Good Soldier Švějk presents his main character Josef Švejk. With the distinctive traditional Czech cartoon character of a soldier Svejk, this time you meet on the way to the front and eventually right in the firing line. You can look at his famous train events, and also probably the most famous episode of the novel, Švejk's Budějovice anabasis. Don't miss the scene with the secretly bought cognac, the episode with Svejk as a fake Russian prisoner of war, including the court scene, and the scene in which lieutenant Dub is caught in a brothel. Despite the criticism, Steklý's adaptation is undoubtedly the most famous and memorable at present.
I Dutifully Report

The unfortunate 1930s also befell the student Standa Půlpán. For existential reasons, he had to abandon his studies and entered the mines. However, he only slowly and with difficulty became close to the older miners, rough men who were closed in on themselves. Only his brave stand in rescuing people who were trapped in a mining accident will win him the solidarity of the entire mining collective. Even Karel Čapek's draft once lent itself to promoting an exacerbated class interpretation of social relations.
První parta

A crime writer is accused of being too imaginative and his ideas unworkable, but everything changes when an international criminal demands his professional cooperation. The somewhat freaked out and disbelieving hero is also surprised to discover that his own wife has unsuspected criminal tendencies...
Přísně tajné premiéry

Labakan is a lazy tailor's journeyman dreaming of a life of luxury and dresses himself in fancy clothes for the rich emir, and when he sees how respectfully people greet him in the marketplace, he seizes the opportunity that unexpectedly presents itself. For he meets the Sultan's son Omar, who was brought up by the noble Cairo Pasha and is now returning home. Labakan steals the Sultan's dagger, his trademark, and sets out to find him. However, the Sultan's wife recognizes her true son and forces the Sultan to put both men to the test. Both have to prove their skill by sewing a coronation gown, which of course only the real tailor Labakan will be able to do, and so the executioner awaits him. Fortunately, it was all a dream and the foolish young man will make amends in time.
Labakan

The story takes place at the time when Giacomo Casanova, probably the most famous conqueror of women, held the position of librarian at the Valdštejn castle in Duchcov. He was then a rather bored and grumpy old man who enjoyed only writing his memoirs and then a daily game of cards with the Count. But all that changed when Wallenstein's young nephew František Adam arrived at the chateau with his charming wife Valeria. She wanted to see the famous seducer with her own eyes. However, she was somewhat disappointed by the reality, as well as by the seducer's outdated views on love.
Poslední růže od Casanovy

Young prisoner Jan, nicknamed Roughboy (Petr Cepek), tries to commit suicide. He was imprisoned for a fight in which he injured a functionary of the National Committee and for stealing material but actually by the blame for this crime was pinned on him by the road-builders in whose group he worked. The prison doctor knows that Jan is an emotionally deprived person who never knew his parents and spent all his childhood - except one year with foster-parents - in orphanages, homes for youth and reform schools. He arranges a five-day holiday for Jan, who wants to find his mother's grave.
Nudity

Miss Nováková reports to Major Tuma (Karel Höger) from the police about the disappearance of her roommate, the model Zuzana. Shortly afterwards, a film director named Konrád (Otomar Krejca) asks Tuma to cooperate on a new cinéma-vérité film describing the story of Zuzana's disappearance.
Alibi on the Lake

When a volunteer police helper is too proactive, he causes more confusion than good. The unfortunate man has no idea what the testimony of an unreliable witness can do...
Dva tygři

A story about the uproar caused by the arrival of a new, young and, by local standards, too energetic zookeeper in a village JZD. Her name is Maya Četná and one evening she arrives like a tornado on a motorbike in the semi-truck of a typical Czech village. The chairman, leaving the next day for a long-term training, has no time to get to know the girl properly, so it's no wonder he can't help wondering when she returns.