Bontonfilm

In the heady days of the 1968 Prague Spring, a group of Czechoslovak Radio journalists risk not just their careers but their lives to distribute independent news amidst national and regional tumult. Orphaned brothers Tomáš and Pája are caught in the struggle for freedom. The elder, Tomáš, is a radio technician working at the station committed to defying the Communist Party’s censorship, overwhelming propaganda, and police harassment. When security forces pressure him to spy for them, Tomáš finds himself in a bind where he has to choose between betraying his colleagues or protecting Pája.

The young Zuzanka, Honzik and Goat look for the children's parents, whom the devil has apparently kidnapped to punish them for producing devilishly good goat cheese. However, the children find their parents not in hell, but in the castle, where they must make cheese for Kobyl, the king's advisor. Kobyl gained the king's good graces thanks to the cheese. After a dangerous and corny adventure, Kobyl ends up in hell and the family members are reunited.

Four old friends decide to shake up their unhappy, monotonous lives with a friendly bet and set off a series of unexpected events.

With his father's memory waning, a struggling forester must confront the troubling reality about his livelihood and his family's future.

Inspired by Czech Republic's 1998 Olympic win, 11-year-old Dom forms a hockey team with friends to pursue their dreams against all the odds.

Flower Buds tells the story of the gradual breakdown of a family living in a small town. Each character lives according to his or her own ideals. Agata wants a happy life far from home, fully aware that her only hope is to escape and therefore betray those close to her. Honza believes in the purity and power of love, regardless of the circumstances under which it is born. Kamila looks confidently to the future and does not intend to accept the misery of the present. The only Jarda knows that he will not change the world or himself. Aware of his weakness, he does not even try. In his mind, of course, his addiction to slot machines, which has led to a nearly impossible situation, is as certain as most gamblers' belief of an imminent win. The real and convincing attempt to rescue his family comes when it is too late. It is just a futile gesture, a desperate last ditch effort.

Libor, a former teacher, enjoys a well-paid position as a bank manager, living in a luxurious villa outside Prague. His business partners are taken into custody and the authorities have a few questions for him to answer. Rather than wait around, he decides to take off to Moravia with his wife and two children. In the process, he pretends that everything is normal, rediscovers the value of family life, meets up with a former colleague lost in provincial obscurity, and becomes the object of a manhunt. Libor is not a criminal type, merely someone who signs cheques and is drawn into a business world failing to recognise its own criminality (he doesn’t even flee the country).

Adolescence is always a difficult time; it is doubly so for Gábina. For one thing, she is growing up in the normalization years of the 1970s, and then she also has to face the reality that her father is a well-known actor disavowed by the regime. Although he abandoned the family years before, his existence casts an ominous shadow over the lives of not only Gábina, but also her older sister and mother, who are trying to find a civilized way through the social mire of the times.

Something’s going on and Amálka has no idea what it is. In a superbly creative direction from Beata Parkanová, Tiny Lights follows a family break-up as perceived by a child.

When her daughter decides to move back home, Ivana, a mother who only lives for her autistic son, finds her fragile family ecosystem challenged forever.

35-year-old Eliska has a wedding and is waiting for her big moment. Instead of his "yes", the groom says "no" and runs away from the altar. Fortunately, overwhelmed Eliska has a great friend with a clear recipe for what needs to be done. She herself alternates boys as socks and therefore immediately bases her profile on a dating site. She doesn't like it very much, but she is middle-aged, she's single and she's afraid the train won't miss her. And she wants to take life more firmly in her hands. She therefore throws herself into a blind date and tries to find new love between a series of catastrophic meetings. At the same time, she has to move quickly and the only option is to live with her half-brother, a weirdo who grows bees on the roof and who does not want her at home.

Lovers & Murderers is about the ongoing war between those who have and those who want to have what the others have. The have-nots see themselves as poor victims trying to get for themselves what is justly theirs. But when the have-nots become haves, they continue to see themselves as victims of the hordes baying for what is justly theirs, and they have neither the energy nor the security to enjoy what they have obtained. The movie takes place in the microcosm of a small apartment building. The principal goal of the young people who share rooms in the building is to move into their own room and, some day, a real apartment. They scheme to get what they're after: form short-lived alliances, petition, frighten, marry, become pregnant, anything that might work. Lovers & Murderers presents Páral's vision of mankind caught in a cyclical process in which ideology pales before the pettiness, cruelty, and self-justification of human nature.

When the West Coast Crew dance troupe, led by the talented and ambitious Buddy, is selected to enter the widely broadcast “Superdance” reality TV talent show, the young dancers revel in their newfound fame and dream of their lives as winners of the prestigious contest. But as the competition begins to heat up – especially from rival dance troupe Muertas – jealousy, narcissism and interpersonal conflict threaten to break the crew apart.

Beata Parkanová, the filmmaker behind Moments, returns to Karlovy Vary with an exceptionally vivid portrait of the family of notary Václav Vojíř, a small-town moral authority, and his selfless wife Věra. This masterfully told and highly original intimate drama, whose protagonists undergo a difficult ordeal in the summer of 1968, is reinforced by finely wrought, exquisite performances from Martin Finger and Gabriela Mikulková.