Alexander Šurkala

Jolana (18) is an object of her step-father's desire. She is unable to cope, especially when her own mother turns a blind eye. Those events are heavily paid for when she finds herself working in a brothel. Her inability to cope raise a question: What is it she actually wants? Are her dreams of escaping really better than the reality she finds herself in?

Terapie is HBO Europe’s Czech adaptation of the Israeli award-winning TV drama series BeTipul (In Treatment), part of a series of adaptations that also includes Romanian, Polish and Hungarian versions. It explores one of the defining features of modern society, therapy, as seen through the eyes of a psychiatrist whose professional and personal life is on the verge of collapse.

A young queen falls in love with her physician, and they start a revolution that changes their nation forever.

Tormented with his 'under-privileged' societal status, a father capitalizes on his son's newfound fame as a boy-genius. Little does he realize that the secret he harbors will destroy the very thing he loves the most.

A story set in a small village in Sudetenland between 1937 and 1945. "Habermann" is based on true events.

The Humorist is a film about a week in the life of Boris Arkadiev, a fictional Soviet stand-up comedian. Boris is tormented not only by external oppression and censorship but also by his own insecurities that poison all his relationships.

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Sir "P" a 90 year old gray parrot, formerly living with Edouard Daladier, the French prime minister responsible for signing the Munich Treaty, comes to Prague to give his "account" of the past events. But can he do it, being just a bird? In a series of weird events sir is kidnapped by a Czech journalist undergoing his midlife crisis. The guy has him publicly say some really controversial statements, causing a diplomatic scandal. At the end of the day it is the French who decide to assassinate their own national hero....And that's only the half of the story.

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.

The 10 Rules comedy tells a story of a shy scientist Marek who falls hopelessly in love with a seemingly inaccessible girl. His friends determined to help him, call Marek’s father, a successful publisher of books on the subject of how to get a woman. Together, they begin to develop a very peculiar course on girl psychology. However, do these 10 sure-fire rules apply exactly as described in the books?

Charming 60-something José returns to Prague after 30 years living in Mexico, though he was convinced that he would never see his hometown again. He was persuaded by his deeply religious Mexican wife Dolores, who is convinced that only a miracle that might be fulfilled by Prague’s famous Infant Jesus can help their daughter Penelopé get pregnant. And the ideal time for this is Christmas. And when Ruda, his friend from Prague, also insists, José agrees to return to the places he used to know and to the memories that they bring back – including his former Prague love. And it becomes evident that the Infant Jesus is not the only one capable of making miracles come true in Prague. Penelopé’s longed-for conception is definitely not the only one…

Zuzana is an attractive and likable art student who works alongside her studies because she would like to start a life of her own. Like many young people, she is trying to find what would fulfill her, what she would like to do, find out who she would like to live with. She runs away from one lover in Bratislava to another in Paris, she is at work when she should be at school, she sleeps when she should be at home, she travels the world. She simply often feels two syllables behind. And not just literally when working in dubbing, but figuratively in his own life.

A story of Eliska and her daughter, starting a new life in a remote house with the 'father away on business', as the mother claims. After the lie is disclosed, their relationship begins to wither. At that time, the mythical Noonday Witch begins to materialize. She is coming closer and closer and the question is poised: is the danger real or is it all in the mother's crumbling head?

In 1976 a famous American writer Nathan Zuckerman is challenged by Czech immigrant Sisovsky who implores him to retrieve valuable manuscripts from communist Czechoslovakia. The writer accepts this dangerous mission, where his every step is observed by secret police. Once in Prague, he meets Sisovsky‘s flamboyant and wild ex-wife Olga who is in possession of the manuscripts. The evolving relationship between the hot-headed Olga and Nathan is a confrontation between two worlds - the repressed East and free West. But, Olga won‘t give up the manuscripts to Nathan so easily…

In 1980s CSSR, depressed Martin tries to overcome the feeling of being locked up with jazz music.

Dostoevsky’s latter-day opus about the siblings and their father is among the masterpieces of world literature. It asks profound questions about ethics and religion. Is there a God? Does the devil exist? Is everything allowed because we live in a world without morality? And if so, does patricide even constitute a crime? One of the most interesting adaptations of the material is The Karamazovs by Czech director Petr Zelenka. We witness a group of thesps from Prague on a trip to Krakow in Poland to stage the novel as a play in a derelict steelworks as part of the Closer to Life Festival. The project, however, is born under the bad sign, apparently doomed from the start. When they arrive, the roof is about to cave in, so that the actors are told to wear safety helmets. Their sole consistent audience is a laborer (Andrzej Mastalerz) who rather follows each dress rehearsal than watching over his seven-year-old son who has suffered a tragic accident in the factory.

Droneman is about Chemist and Fly Navigator Pavel and his friend Bussinessman and free time Rapper Plech. Pavel has strong sense of justice and wishes to fix wrongs with the World while Plech dreams about Big money and secure life. Their common passion are Drones since School. Pavel returns from Foreign and meets again with Plech and together they use Drones to start Bussiness. They monitor Power Stations, wear luxury handbags at the show or spray the Petrin Tower from the air. Their clients even include Presidential candidate. Everything changes when one of them decides to misuse Drones.

Tonight the World draws from a cross-section of dream diaries kept by Martin’s grandmother, Susi Stiassni, who fled the imminent Nazi occupation of Czechoslavakia in 1938. Through five chapters, the film links as many dreams sited in Susi’s childhood home, Villa Stiassni, a modernist mansion built by Susi’s parents, who were prominent Jewish textile manufacturers in the industrial hub of Brno. Conjured in Susi’s imagination from her middle-age onwards, in the context of psychoanalysis, the dream diaries as a whole span 40 years and 40,000 dreams, but Martin’s selection focuses tightly on dreams about intruders within the Villa, recreating a narrative of threat and escape that parallels Susi’s lived experience. Retracing the legacy of her grandmother’s emotional history, Martin considers the unconscious underpinnings of intergenerational trauma, loss and resilience.

The short story film based on the book of the same name by Karel Pecka depicts the atmosphere of the Lesser Town in the 1980s.

A genius, Elvis (13), misunderstood by the world, swears by chemistry, comic books and Hanna, the most beautiful girl at his school. His life completely changes when his parents get a divorce and he finds himself, all of a sudden, sharing his home with women only: his mom, his younger sister and his grandmother. The unexpected family tsunami climaxes with his mother’s news that she is pregnant. In a funny, amusing and dynamic teenage odyssey, Elvis manages to solve all the complications and pickles, to glue back together the pieces of his broken life and to escape towards himself. The film is based on the eponymous best-selling book about a modern-day Slovenian Adrian Mole, for which Janja Vidmar received numerous awards.