Martin Vandas

Tom (4 years old), Suzanne (8) and Derek (10) spend the weekend with their grandparents. But nothing is as usual: Grandpa seems to be elsewhere; Tom wonders where Grandma has gone, she who always tells him incredible stories; Derek is hard at work renovating the old apple tree hut. So following in the footsteps of her ancestor, Suzanne improvises herself as a storyteller to illuminate the house with imaginary and wonderful stories and try to fill the absence of Grandmother. The movie is an adaptation of three tales written by Arnost Goldflam.

In a small town plunged into darkness, two children, Kyona and Adriel, are separated from their parents and, facing the path of exile alone, embark on a heroic journey that will take them from childhood to adolescence, in search of refuge, peace and the hope of finding their family.

A man becomes lured into a fictional game his ex-girlfriend has initiated. Sexually ensnared by her, and now realizing the fragility of the border between the real and the imagined, he begins to unravel. He convinces himself that if he can only write an ending to his life story, he can regain control of his life. But playing with fiction is not an innocent game…

September 1989 in the GDR. With the change of the general mood in the country, the life of 12-year-old FRITZI changes as well. Her best friend Sophie has fled with her mother through Hungary to West Germany and the only thing Fritzi has left is Sophie's little dog Sputnik. But Fritzi misses Sophie just as much as her little four-legged friend does. Therefore, she decides to bring Sputnik to Sophie. But there is only one way to get there: over the strictly guarded border. A very dangerous adventure for a 12-year-old girl and a small dog...

A young girl buries in her soul a memory of a painful moment, when as a child she brought home an injured bird and her father burdened by his own weight of worries didn’t notice her feelings and longing for understanding. The girl took her father’s reaction as indifference and closed herself in her inner world longing for her father’s love and its manifestations. Since that moment she and her dad continued to grow apart, and as an adult she is no longer able to accept his endearments. The father suffers from guilt and searches for a way back to his daughter, trying to revive their lost relationship.

Hurikán rushes out to save his favourite beer stand from closure by fetching a new keg to impress the bartender he has a crush on. In a wild Prague district, he faces robbers, cops, and his own thirst.

Jan Balej's animated film One Night in One City (2007) from the Czech Republic. Very little dialogue throughout, but instead a rich world of sounds and music which more than match the detailed animation and curious vignettes that create the film.

Mimi sees the world with her hands and ears. She is blind. Together with her best friend Líza, they have visited many fantastic worlds of fun and mystery. Christmas is finally coming. Mimi, Líza and their neighbours decorate a beautiful magnificent tree. However, the bulbs won’t light up. Where did the magic Christmas light disappear? The answer is hidden in the times when their neighbours were still small children. Mimi and Líza set out on an adventurous journey to bring the charming Christmas light back.

Sea, sun, beaches and family holidays. But what if the hotel isn't as stellar as promised, your room has a bit of a naughty view, the dinner is surprisingly exotic and your luggage travels elsewhere?

24th February 2022, my boyfriend and I fled Kyiv to go to Irpin. We spent 10 days in a blockaded city and just managed to escape with the last evacuation convoy. Time passed, but the feeling that I died in Irpin has never left me since.

Humorous as well as educational stories about magical and everyday problems, about devils, miracles, ordinary human vices and wisdom. The graphic design of the stories reflects the humour and the atmosphere of the stories Fimfárum, When the Leaves Fall from the Oak, Franta the Fearless, A Dream Come True, and Greedy Barka, that were recorded by Jan Werich on an LP in the 1960’s and published in a book called Fimfarum.

Joko is a young man who works on the cistern, he is the only breadwinner in a family. On his second anniversary of employment, Joko and his colleagues meet with foreign delegates who force boy and the rest to… carry on their back. At first, Joko is against and rebels against this humiliating activity. However, under the pressure and desire to earn good money, he subsides.

Electra rethinks her 10th birthday, mixing memories with imagination and hidden dreams. Isolated in her fantasy world full of made-up busty dolls, plastic men’s body parts, juicy strawberries and dentist tools, she builds up her own relationships with her body and sexuality. Diving deeper and deeper into her childhood memories, she experiences again rebellion against her mother and mixed feelings for her father. Electra has to go through the most painful memories to let her suppressed feelings come out. In the end, she is ready to reveal what has really happened during her 10th birthday.

The film contains three Jan Werich's fairy tales, each directed by one artist. The first story sets out to the Sumava mountains in Southern Bohemia to find out whether Ogres ever lived there. The middle tale The Hat and the Little Jay Feather concerns a king who sends his three sons to bring back a hat he left at a tavern when he was young. The third and longest fairy tale Reason and Luck is about the two virtues of the title try to prove their importance by changing the life of a pig herder named Louis. Written by

In his film at the intersection of an experiment and a poetic documentary, Milan Klepikov looks at the end of the world as defined by the poet Petr Král, who is convinced that children are born into a world which has in fact already ended. Trying to understand the young generation’s viewpoint and to capture the end of cinema as we know if, Klepikov wildly chases and captures visual and auditive input, which he combines into a film sketchbook consisting of fragments of the lives of young people who apparently have been through the end of the world, but who still have many years ahead of them.

Lucie Sunková’s short film The Tree is a metaphorical story about the parallels in lives of people and trees, a lyrical poem about birth and death, about the flow of our time and the nature surrounding us, a parable about parenthood and crossing the boundaries of a human (not only) life. It is a story about relations, seeming hopelessness and a happy promise. Used paint-on-glass technique, a pure poetic means of expression ideal for a story like this, forms another metaphoric layer of the film withs its laboriousness and graphic style. The budget of this co-production reached almost 150 thousand EUR and was almost evenly divided between MAUR film and French production company Les Films de l’Arlequin. Both sides were supported by their respective national funds – State Cinematography Fund in the Czech Republic and the prestigious national fund CNC – Centre National du Cinema in France.

The sequel to the successful film Fimfárum by Jan Werich. Four brand new stories “for clever children and clever adults” from the popular book written by Jan Werich. Břetislav Pojar introduces the story of little Tom Thumb full of twists and adventure. Aurel Klimt brings to life three brothers, The Hunchbacks of Damascus, re-creating the atmosphere of the Middle East and variety of the oriental storytelling. Vlasta Pospíšilová’s Three Sisters and One Ring shows a rural Decameron-like manual on how to enchant one’s loved ones with a mere ring and Jan Balej lets his characters Marek and Kouba re-live an ancient fairy-tale about greed, devils and natural phenomena in his The Sea, Uncle, Why is it Salty?

Far, far away, endless fields overgrown with weeds stretch to infinity. A beautiful garden is hidden in the middle of them, and it is carefully looked after by the Gardener. Her endurance is put to the test when a severe storm breaks out and her garden is flooded with seeds of weeds. This innocent encounter slowly grows into a life-and-death struggle. The Gardener tries her best to defeat this elemental force, but her fear and her desire to resist the intruders at all costs puts her entire world at risk.

Blind Mimi and Lisa are best friends. They learn from each other to approach the world and its diversity with generosity, tolerance, and openness. In a new story, titled The Garden, a yellow container is installed in the yard of their house which their neighbours soon start filling with old and broken things. Lisa is curious what Mimi would be getting rid of and is surprised to see she doesn´t throw away anything. For Mimi, all old things at home are her anchors and little certainties in the dark. Lisa decides to throw away her old red ball. But it falls behind the container and thanks to it the girls discover a secret door leading to the beautiful Garden of the miraculous Magic Maker, who takes them on a quick trip through all the seasons.

Documentary about the famous Polish director Agnieszka Holland and her relationship to Czechoslovakia, based on two storylines: one depicting the life of Agnieszka Holland during her studies in Prague towards the end of the 1960’s, her friends, her participation in a student strike and her arrest for supporting the dissident movement and anti-state tendencies, and the second one - following her return there.