František Vláčil
1924 - 1999František Vláčil (February 19, 1924, Český Těšín – January 28, 1999, Prague) was a Czech film director, painter, and graphic artist. Between 1945 and 1950, he studied esthetics and art history at Masaryk University in Brno. Later he worked in various groups and ateliers (e.g. on animated films), but his main area became played film. His films are well known for extraordinarily high art quality. Vláčil was awarded many film prizes like the Prize of the International Film Festival 1998 in Karlovy Vary or the Czech Lion Prize for his longstanding contribution to world film culture.
Marketa Lazarová
František Vláčil
František Velecký, Magda Vášáryová
Mikolás and his brother Adam end up with a young German hostage of noble blood during a robbery. While their clan prepares for the wrath of the German king, Mikolás is sent to pressure his neighbor Lazar into a defense pact. Persuasion fails and he abducts Lazar's daughter Marketa on the eve of her initiation as a nun in an act of vengeance.
Marketa Lazarová
Údolí včel
František Vláčil
Jan Kačer, Věra Galatíková
Cast out by his father, young Ondrej joins the Order of the Teutonic Knights, where he is raised by strict monk Armin. After years of hardship, Ondrej escapes from the Order when he is wrongly punished, and sets out for his former home. Arriving to discover his father to be dead, Ondrej now not only assumes control of his father's properties, but seeks to marry his former stepmother.
The Valley of the Bees
My Sweet Little Village
Jiří Menzel
János Bán, Marián Labuda
The movie's main storyline follows the life of Otík, a young man, in a tight-knit village community. The sweet-tempered Otík works as an assistant truck driver with Mr. Pávek, his older colleague and practical-minded neighbor. Pávek's family takes care of Otík, whose parents are dead. However, the two coworkers become at odds over Otík's inability to perform even the simplest tasks. Pávek demands that Otík be transferred to assist another driver, who happens to be a choleric and suspicious man named Turek (Turk in Czech). Rather than work with Turek, Otík decides to accept an offer of employment in Prague, but finds he does not fit in to the city life. After discovering that the transfer of Otík to Prague was a trick by a crooked politician to get a deal on Otík's large inherited house, Pávek agrees to give Otík a second chance and retrieves him from the city to resume their work together.
My Sweet Little Village
Sirius
František Vláčil
Michal Vavruša, Jana Hlaváčová
In SIRIUS, a young boy whose most cherished companion is his loyal German shepherd devises his own form of resistance when the Nazis arrest his father, then order the confiscation of local canines, including his pet, to be retrained as attack dogs against the rebellious populace.
Sirius
The White Dove
František Vláčil
Kateřina Irmanovová, Karel Smyczek
A poetic film about a dove getting lost on its way to Prague getting shot down by a paralyzed boy. An artist who finds the dove becomes friends with the boy. Together they take care of it bringing it back to recovery.
The White Dove
The Devil's Trap
František Vláčil
Vítězslav Vejražka, Miroslav Macháček
A small town is one day visited by a priest who is there on a secret mission. He is a member of the Inquisition sent to investigate the activities of a local miller. The miller and his son are the descendants of an old family whose ancestral home burned down a century ago, but was rebuilt from scratch. The miller inherited much of his knowledge about the land, water, and a building's stability from generations of family experience. His reputation for finding water and predicting when a structure might collapse have come to the attention of the Inquisition -surely he must be in league with the Devil.
The Devil's Trap
Albert
František Vláčil
Jaroslav Filip, Jan Kačer
Story of an extraordinary musician, violinist, who was famous, but his alcoholism led him to poverty. Now he is playing time from time to rich people. Then Albert meets count Delesov, who tries to change Albert's life. Two different characters, two ways of life confront... Will Albert change? Should he?
Albert
Stíny horkého léta
František Vláčil
Juraj Kukura, Marta Vančurová
The story of 1947, when Bender's band, after a beating of the Nazis, tried to fight their way through Czechoslovakia to Austria. They come out of the forest to occupy the family's rural estate, kidnap doctors to help heal one of their wounded.
Shadows of a Hot Summer
Adelheid
František Vláčil
Petr Čepek, Emma Černá
In the aftermath of World War II, a soldier takes charge of a manor formerly owned by a German family and falls in love with the daughter, now a maid. Their relationship forces him to confront the tension between his love and his conscience.
Adelheid
The Legend of the Silver Fir
František Vláčil
Július Vašek, Zdeněk Kryzánek
According to one Beskydy Mountains legend, if you do a good deed you will see silver trees. Little Ondra knows trees like that. In his family's cottage hangs a picture showing silver firs, a person falling from a height and a watch. In art lessons Ondra paints trees of the same kind. - One day Lojzek Hojgr, a man who climbs fir trees to gather the seeds, comes to see Ondra's parents. Long-ago Ondra's father has had such a job and Lojzek is his long-time friend. Hojgr moves into a half-ruined wood cabin. Ondra's father takes him on a visit to Lojzek and both demonstrate the beautiful but dangerous work of seed-gathering to the boy.
The Legend of the Silver Fir
Smoke on the Potato Fields
František Vláčil
Rudolf Hrušínský, Věra Galatíková
In this character study by Czech director Frantisek Vlacil, a stout middle-aged physician whose marriage has come apart establishes a practice in a small town. Gradually he's drawn into the lives of his patients—a childless couple, a pregnant girl with a stern mother, the son of a duck farmer—and each relationship reveals a bit more about him and the idyllic but insular community.
Smoke on the Potato Fields
Hadí jed
František Vláčil
Josef Vinklář, Karel Brožek
Her mother dead, 18-year-old Vladka travels to a remote village in the dead of winter to find the father she has never met. The happiness of their initial meeting gives way to the daughter’s disappointment and concern over the hardworking man’s alcoholism.
Serpent's Poison
Shades of Fern
František Vláčil
Marek Probosz, Zbigniew Suszyński
Based on the only extensive prose work by the surrealist painter Josef Capek, Shades of Fern most resembles the philosophical fairy tales and fables of Josef’s older brother, the legendary Czech novelist and playwright Karel Capek. Two young poachers, more boys than men, kill a gamekeeper when they are caught illegally hunting. Panicked, they retreat into a forest that grows steadily more forbidding and deadly as their fear for the future—and guilt over their action—mounts. Loosely based on hundreds of oral folk tales and legends that haunt the woods of Czechoslovakia, Vlácil’s contemporary updating artistically underscores the relationship between man and nature, crime and punishment, isolation and society, and guilt and memory.
Shades of Fern
