CZECH FILM FESTIVAL

4th Aug 2008 to 7th Aug 2008

Synopsis

ZELARY / Zelary / Dir : Ond?ej Trojan / 2003 / 150 min - 4th August 2008 - 6.15 pm

Plot It is the 1940s and the Czech lands have been occupied by the Nazis. Eliska is a young woman who unable to complete medical school because of war , works as a nurse. She is also involved in the resistance movement. One night, a man is brought to the hospital with serious injuries and desperately needs a transfusion. Eliska is the only one with the same blood type. Her blood saves his life and a connection is formed between the two. The resistance group that the doctors are involved in is discovered and hunted by the Gestapo. Zelary tells the story of a clash between two different worlds and two different people. Awards: 4 wins & 10 nominations . Nominated for Oscar.

DARK BLUE WORLD / Tmavomodry svet./ Dir : Jan Sverak /2001/ 113 min / 5th August 2008 - 6.15 pm

Plot : During World War II a number of Czech airmen flew alongside British RAF pilots against the Germans.. Seasoned pilot Franta (Ondrej Vetchý) and young hot-head Karel (Krystof Hádek), travel to Britain to offer their skills. When Karel’s plane is shot down not far from the base, he finds himself made welcome by an English woman, Susan (Tara Fitzgerald), who overcomes her initial suspicion of his accent. Her husband is missing in action and the two comfort each other with more than kind words. Young Karel is in love, but Susan appears more interested in his best friend Franta. One of the greatest strengths of Dark Blue World is that it shows the tragedy of people helping to win a war, only to be forgotten by the victors.

Awards:6 wins & 8 nominations

REBELS / Rebelové / Dir: Filip Renc /2001/ 110min/ 6th August 2008 - 6.15 pm

Plot : This is a musical film set in hot summer of 1968. A small town in Czech border region, three final year school girls and three “rebels”, who just do not wish to have anything in common with the present totalitarian regime. Circumstances in which the young heroes meet and what follows is the main plot of a great love story. A film with a lot of songs, which provide the film story with an important and un-changeable character of the end of sixties period mood of easygoing, and non-committal, in association with fate , interweaving of personal and political development forms the structure of this tragicomedy.

Awards:5 wins & 2 nominations

WILDFLOWERS / Kytice / Dir: F.A.Brabec / 2005/ 58 min./ 6th August 2008 - 8.00 pm

Plot : Kytice is a series of seven short films thematically linked and based on a series of ballads written 200 years ago by K.J Erbena, regarded by some as the Czech equivalent of William Shakespeare. They are famous folk-stories and fairy tales, well-known to anyone in the Czech Republic. Wildflowers/ Kytice/ A woman dies in a thunderstorm while out in the fields. She is buried and her children care for her grave which bears forth wildflowers.. Waterman/ Vodník / A young girl goes to the river despite her mother’s warnings of dangers she has foreseen. The girl falls into the river and is taken to be the wife of a creature who lives in the river. Wedding Shir / Svatební Košile / A young maiden prays for her fiancé’s return from the war, whatever the cost. She doesn’t know that he has died in the war however and when her prayer is answered, she appears not to notice that he has returned from the grave and wants to take her back with him.

Noon Witch / Polednice/ Preparing food in the kitchen, a mother is frustrated by the constant crying of her child. She threatens the child that the noon-witch will take him away if he doesn’t stop crying. The noon-witch hears her call. Golden Spinwheel / Zlatý Kolovrat / A royal prince spies a beautiful girl bathing in the woods. He finds where she lives and demands to have her as his bride. Her stepmother plans to kill the girl and to have her own daughter take her place in the royal palace. Daughter’s Curse /Dcerina Kletb / A girl kills the child she has borne illegitimately and is to be hanged for her crime. She curses her pious mother from the gallows. Christmas Day / Štedrý den / A young maiden believes the superstition that her future love will appear reflected in the lake on at midnight on a moonlit Christmas Eve. She goes with her sister and they see the death of their mother also foretold to them. Seventh Seal Style parade of the dead characters being led from the church that features in several of the episodes.

Awards: 5 wins & 4 nominations

AUTUMN SPRING/ Babi leto / Dir: Vladimír Michálek/ 2001 / 95 min. 7th August 2008 - 6.15 pm

Plot A tragicomedy featuring a youthful 75 - year - old man, an eternal dreamer who, unlike his beloved and overly -worried wife, refuses to reconcile himself to getting older. He lives life as never ending challenge in which every day becomes a delightful opportunity for new adventures. He and his devoted longtime friend from the operetta act out their theatre roles in real life situations in an attempt to make his dreams come true. The protagonist appears as an emeritus member of Metropolitan opera who buys castles, as a ticket checker, a philanthropist, and even a mountain climber. In a number of funny scenes laced with gentle black humor, he fights with his wife for carefree and independent ways he uses to demonstrate the ART of LIVING.

Awards:7 wins & 5 nominations

HANELE / Hanele / Dir: Karel Kachna / 1999 / 99 min. 7th August 2008 - 8.00 pm

Synopsis Hanele” is a timeless tale of generational and ideological conflict set in an enclave of religious Jews in Sub-Carpathian Ukraine in the 1930′. Without dowry, and refusing to marry the slow-witted village boy who wants her hand, beautiful Hanele escapes provincial Polana by joining a Zionist youth group recruiting young men and women for work in the big city. There she meets and falls in love with Ivo Karadzic, a handsome, successful free thinking secular Jew who has renounced all traditional religious belief. When Hanele brings Ivo home to ask for her father’s permission to marry, the resulting collision of the modern and the traditional worlds causes shocks and reverberations that threaten to both ruin her family and end the engagement to Ivo. Award-winning Director Kachyna, already in his seventies when making this film, has created a stirring period melodrama about love, belief, family and difficulty of making choices.

Awards: 3 nominations