Jan Šípek

The day’s work never ends for a guard worth his salt, even when the gallery closes at seven. And Vašek is a perfect example, at least until he meets Ginger – a femme fatale who has her own plans where he’s concerned. Love turns this nice lad into a thief: armed with a false moustache, sunglasses and a stolen painting, he gets on a train and it remains to be seen whether or not his journey to Rome is paved with good intentions. The train compartment is full of passengers keen to impart their life stories – to him or to anyone who’ll listen. The withdrawn young man pays close attention to it all, even though he has plenty to worry about as it is. The police and a bunch of crooks are hot on his heels and it’s difficult trying to give them the slip with a hefty painting in tow.

Theodora Remundová’s documentary portrait looks at Iva Janžurová’s dramatic and comedic roles in both film and theater, as well as the roles she has played in her family and in social and political life. The director (Janžurová’s daughter) has created a film filled with the truthfulness, sincerity, and capacity for self-reflection of a woman who has devoted her life to acting. The use of clearly staged scenes is combined with an openly acknowledged effort to avoid the kinds of clichés usually found in biographical documentaries to create an organic whole that provides an overview of Janžurová’s pivotal roles while also sharing highly personal and intimate moments from her life. Vít Kořínek (kviff.com)

A prominent Czech journalist Saša Uhlová leaves her family and joins “cheap labour force” in Western Europe. Undercover, she works at an asparagus farm in Germany, tries her hand as a maid at a hotel in Ireland and takes care of the elderly in France. She experiences first-hand the struggles of Eastern European low-wage workers whose sacrifice and hard work allow for the Western society’s comfort. What is the real price that Europe pays for exploiting its own citizens? How do the lives of economic migrants, who have been forced to leave their children and elderly parents, look like? And why are privileged Europeans looking the other way?

The film takes place on the eighth day of Russia's war campaign in Ukraine. Eight Ukrainians residing in the Czech Republic – a businesswoman, cleaning ladies, construction workers, and bus drivers – make their own diary-like observations of the events in their homeland. They continue to bury themselves in their work, unable to afford to withdraw themselves from their current lives. In their minds, however, they've transported themselves hundreds of kilometers away, helping their fellow countrymen and women by any means necessary. They provide accommodation for refugees, scout for bulletproof vests, and call their loved ones who’ve taken shelter from falling bombs. They have a hectic and emotionally overwhelming 24 hours ahead of them. But it’s not the first 24 hours and it won’t be the last.

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Working conditions in the worst-paid jobs in the Czech Republic were examined by journalist Saša Uhlová during six months. She spent several weeks in a hospital laundrette, poultry house, cash register or waste sorting facility. Her experience became the basis of a lived and very personal report of invisible employees working in appalling conditions. Uhlová wrote a series of reports on her project that were published on the Alarm website. Apolena Rychlíková made them into a documentary film consisting of scenes shot at Uhlová's home and video footage taken during her work. Uhlová accompanies the picture with read commentary.

A meditative film explores the effects that examining consciousness and a microscopic view of one’s inner self have on the rationalism that scientists are expected to have. Even though each has a different approach, a physicist and an economist have similar, indescribable experiences, which they can only show through ‘reflections’. Efforts to change a flat map into an actual landscape lead to an unaffected re-examination of the foundations of our society, in which the myth of objectivity often covers up the manipulation of the powers-that-be, and the desire for deeper knowledge may be the driving force for the military industrial complex just as much as for getting a degree.

A film poem. A minimalist reflection on whether inner states are transferable by the film medium. The aim of a Buddhist mindfulness meditation is to clear away thoughts wandering from the past to the present, to be mindfully aware of each present moment. Each unique NOW NOW NOW passing away just like single frames while the camera grab snatches off meters of expensive 35mm material.

The world around us is always changing. And our beer is changing with it. What is behind traditional beer brands in the era of globalisation? What happens if a liquid national heritage turns into a 'Eurobier'? Many people believe that beer and its character influence the life of a nation more than we think. And more and more believe that the Czech beer industry is no longer Czech. Not only because of who largely owns it, but also because of what it actually produces. Is that really the case? And if so, what can we do?

Czech painter and artist Otto Placht (1962) is sometimes called the painter of the jungle. His creative and private life is divided between Prague and Peru, where he draws inspiration from the depths of the Amazon rainforest, ayahuasca and the local people. The film shows his creative process in the interiors of Prague and a studio built right in the rainforest. Poetic shots of nature are interspersed with the harsh realities of the big city, in which Placht's passionate love life and complicated family life are also revealed. The artist's paintings have proven to be not only a fascination with and homage to immaculate nature, but also an environmental plea for its protection.

A threefold portrait, presenting the reality within the limits of a subjective view, puts together the lives of an increasingly more remote writer and musician; a hacker, dreaming his dream of transformation into a purely virtual existence in the depths of technology; and an undertaker, unrealistic raconteur, living on the history of half-mythical Sudetenland.

Brno plays the main role in the film. It brings together several story lines of the film, which also meet in the course of the film's narrative. The main axis of the film is the story of Standy Kadlec, an overly trusting and kind man, and his pregnant wife Alena. On the other hand, it is the story of Ladi, the closest assistant of the mayor of Brno, Lang. Ladi is Standa's classmate from high school. He is, however, Stand's opposite in character. While Stand's kindness and good manners condemn him to a life role of a "loser", Ladi gathers shameless success. But gradually we learn who really has the most to lose...

Jan Šípek documented the unmistakable singer-songwriter and spiritual seeker Oldřich Janota (1949–2024) during the last period of Janota's life. This meant accepting the challenge and approaching Oldřich's song koans with a wholly original film style. The film was made on the day of the winter solstice during one of the very last performances of this great figure of Czech independent culture.