Directing
No description available.
Janette is terminally ill and wants to die in a dignified way but this is not permitted under British law. She refuses to wait for death in unbearable pain so she opts for a physician-assisted suicide in Switzerland. Before departing on the final journey she has to explain her intention to the family members and close friends.
Vera Cáslavská, the most successful Czechoslovak sportswoman and the fourth most successful Olympic sportswoman globally, won seven gold and four silver medals. After her 1968 Mexico City Olympics victory, she became the second most popular woman after Jacqueline Kennedy. In 1968, she signed the 2000 Words Manifesto, which she never retracted. Despite her fame, she faced a troubled life due to political issues, marriage, and family tragedy. Her story reflects Czech society during both communist and democratic regimes, where she was active in the civil sphere. She views her sports career as fleeting fame compared to her challenging life. Now 68, 42 years after her sports career, she remains admired in the Czech Republic and Japan. Her life is a unique chapter in Czech history.
In her own words, this documentary profiles renowned opera singer Soňa Červená and how the tumultuous events of 20th-century Europe impacted her life.
A minimalist portrait of ultimate love.
'The Magic Voice of a Rebel' portrays the story of the Czech singer Marta Kubisová, who without never intending it, became a symbol of freedom for all generations in the newly free Czhecoslovakia in 1989. It is Marta herself who tells us her life story and how the Soviet invasion in Czechoslvakia in 1968 changed her life. Because of her deep involvement in the Prague Spring movement, she went from being the most popular singer in the country to being banned and suffering a sudden removal from the public scene by the new authorities imposed from Moscow. She refused to escape to exile and together with other banned intelectuals and artists became a disident instead. Blacklisted and persecuted by the secret police, she also suffered the betrayal of beloved people who were collaborating with the regime.
Theatre personality, musician, poet, writer, graphic artist, collector, self-professed clown, eternally young in spirit – all this is Jiří Suchý, one of the key figures of the domestic cultural scene over the last six decades. He has put on 97 plays at the Semafor theatre and has written the lyrics for 1,400 songs and the music for 500. Today, in an era beset by an onslaught of images that are often of questionable worth, this legendary figure’s tireless efforts to enrich the Czech language and its poetic nuances have been of inestimable value. Olga Sommerová lays before us Suchý’s prolific creative and civic journey through life with the subtle distinctiveness we have come to expect; she also demonstrates her singular flair for capturing exceptional moments.
A film about various forms of drugs – American cinema, rock music, and heroin. Together with the protagonist, we experience the bohemian life of young filmmakers, shocking erotic experiences, and the first drastic attempts with drugs. From the initial cool experiment with drugs, we then go through hell and purgatory. A good friend can help with the return, but so can the will to start over, to forgive those who (perhaps) wronged him, to realize that I am mainly to blame for everything...
The title of this documentary about Michael Kocáb alone suggests that art and politics will collide onscreen. Although this cinematic portrayal focuses primarily on the artistic pursuits of the protagonist — who reminisces with slight improvisation his years at the conservatoire and his performances with his band Pražský výběr — the film also maps his political and personal milestones and conveys his current world views and personal reflections on historical and political events. The documentary is playful and spontaneous and features dynamic shots with rock music that has stood the test of time.
Two different productions of Václav Havel's Beggar's Opera reveal the political dynamics of Czechoslovakia before and after the velvet revolution.
Daňa Horáková, the wife of director Pavel Juráček, has written a harrowing book about her cohabitation with the director, one of the representatives of the new film wave of the 1960s. Juráček, the cursed poet of the screen, screenwriter and director, author of the award-winning films A Character to Prop and The Case for a Budding Executioner, and author of two voluminous volumes of his diaries. The idea for a film about two strange personalities came about after reading Dani Horáková's book about life with Pavel Juráček. The book is a very refined confession, a desperate life inventory, an indictment of the normalization regime in Czechoslovakia, which took away people's hopes of continuing their professions and sometimes their very existence. It is "An anatomy of a relationship, of a time, of creation, of love and hate", wrote Olga Sommerová, the author of the theme and director of the film, in the introduction.
