Focus on Czech Animation
Obiščite Prago / Navstivte Prahu / Visit Prague
An amusing story full of ideas satirizes tourists hunting for the highest number of towns and sights visited. A group of tourists run around Prague, but all that remains in their heads is a surrealistic cultural mixture.
Izumrli svet rokavic / Zaniklý svět rukavic/ The Extinct World of Gloves
The film consists of six animated shorts sharing the common motif of glove. Barta deconstructs various ways of cinematic expression – from slapstick comedy, through melodrama, totalitarian propaganda, references to work of European classics such as Luis Buñuel or Federico Fellini, finishing with the vision of Armageddon which reminds of John Carpenter's Escape from New York. This witty play with genres covers the elements of social and political critique.
Stran s kockami / Konec krychle / No More Cubes!
A humorous story of an architect who designs houses in which he himself would hate to live. For other people, he designs cubes, cubes and more cubes. When he finds out that it may not be the best solution he gets a great idea: he designs a pyramid-shaped structure.
Blažena ljubezen / Blaho lásky / The Bliss of Love
A poetic story of a man who all his life has been longing for what he cannot get at the moment and does not appreciate what he does have. Imagination is more important for him than the reality.
Stanovanje / Byt / The Flat
A reflection on an alienated life in which a thing absurdly refuses to accept what it is meant for and aggressively attacks the man's freedom until he declares and signs his own defeat. This horrifying warning is a combination of human and object animation.
Prostor na soncu / O místo na slunci / A Place in the Sun
Considered a classic work by both the Czech and world animated cinematography which influenced a number of animated films in the beginning of the Sixties. With the maximum possible number of generalizations, the film wittily parodies human envy and covetousness by focusing on two creatures fighting for their place in the sun where there is space enough for everybody.
Strast / Vášen / Passion
A modern ballad of a passionate motorist. The film shows that such passion, if not controlled, is self-destructing and even suicidal. At least this is the way Trnka presents it in this satiric story.
Življenje ptic / Ze života ptáků / The Life of Birds
An excellently ironic morality story that deals with the difficult situation of a woman in a contemporary family. In an exaggerated way the woman sets herself free and starts to fly independently and in the same independent manner she volunteers to go back to her kitchen and slavery.
Tema, svetloba, tema / Tma, světlo, tma / Darkness, Light, Darkness
A man fills an empty room with his body, senses, his existence. But his existence is fragile and temporary and as he came from the darkness he leaves for the darkness. The film is remarkable for both its excellent animation of clay and real objects and the philosophical attitude to the question of human life.