Skill of Gold

Skill of Gold 1943

8.50

A village shop owner is convinced by his children to move to Prague, where they say he'll be able to enjoy a fine retirement in a modern furnished apartment. Bored by life in Prague with nothing to do, the old man takes to helping a young widow in her stationery shop.

1943

Fiery Summer

Fiery Summer 1939

5.00

This romantic story turns on a stirring infatuation that takes hold of three young people under the influence of Simon, a Prague student. After the study year, 18 year-old Julio returns to his parental home, a little chateau on the Otava river. There he converges with his childhood friend Petr and the young boatman's daughter Klárka. Sharing her beguilement with Simon, who has quickly turned a tranquil summer atmosphere into a relationship drama, is Julio's cousin Rosa.

1939

Rozina the Love Child

Rozina the Love Child 1945

7.00

Prague, the beginning of the 17th century. Rozina falls in love with Italian glass worker Nikolo, but after returning home, she gets a message that will never come to Prague. She falls for the promise of an older man to marry her, but when Nikolo does return, the tragic fate of Rozina is sealed.

1945

Virginity

Virginity 1937

5.30

The doomed love of a city girl caught in the vise of poverty is detailed in Vavra’s fluid, romantic work, one of the most elegant creations of the Czech Modernist era... The film lingers over its characters’ habitats and haunts, finding psychological truths in what each owns or desires, and countering every Hollywood-ready scene of gleaming restaurants and dazzling penthouses with realist moments of employment lines and crammed flats. Vavra’s classical camerawork and aura of romantic defeatism give Virginity a force comparable to the master of this genre, Hollywood’s Frank Borzage. (BAM/PFA)

1937

Eva Fools Around

Eva Fools Around 1939

6.70

Eva's aunt is jealous of her neighbor's excellent roses and wants to know the secret. To help auntie out Eva applies for secretarial work at the neighbor's house in order to find out the formula. Things get complicated when it turns out that Eva's brother is in love with the daughter of the house and also wants to get in there under false pretenses.

1939

Grandmother

Grandmother 1940

6.10

"Grandmother" is a highly romanticized autobiographical novel by a Czech 19th century writer, Bozena Nemcova. It's a classical, compulsory reading in Czech schools, about a wise, working-class woman, happier in her simplicity and good heart than the nobles whom she serves.

1940

Mist on the Moors

Mist on the Moors 1944

7.00

Mist on the Moors examines fates of just about a few people. Their stories are outlined in a short space of time and are a symbolic representation of the drama of life, struggle for justice, human cognizance and the healing power of love. One of the most important components of the film is the nature, which ceases to be a mere stage for its plot—it serves almost as an autonomous plot agent. The movie landscape is a precisely defined and localized one. Only the South Bohemian ponds can serve as the right environment for development of such earthy and typically human stories as we encounter in the Mist on the Moors.

1944

Tichá bolest

Tichá bolest 1991

7.10

A young man has led his whole life with his grandfather. When he was in school, he was the only one who was refused to join the Youth Brigade, since his father was sentenced to death for spying. When it is time for him to do the compulsory military service, he has to do it in a platoon for "unreliable" persons.

1991