Karel Kachyňa

Director

May 1, 1924 (79 years)

† March 12, 2004

Vyškov

Biography

Karel Kachyňa (1 May 1924 – 12 March 2004) was a Czech film director and screenwriter. His career spanned over five decades.

Filmography

9.0

The Train of Childhood and Expectation

A story of a little girl Verka and her life during the beginning of WWII. Based on Vera Sládková novels.

5.8

The Last Butterfly

Stage mime Antoine Moreau is compelled by the Gestapo to put on a performance for the children of Terezin, a "model" concentration camp, to convince the Red Cross observers that the camp is truly what it seems. Reluctant at first, Moreau slowly learns the true nature of the camp, including the meaning of the "transports" on which people leave. With a world-class orchestra (made up of people interned in the camp) and a cast of children, Moreau stages a show to end all shows.

8.0

Three kings

Three kings is Czech war series that was aired in 1998. It is loosely based on story of members of ressistance organization Obrana národa who were known Three Kings. This group consisted of Josef Balabán, Václav Morávek and Josef Mašín.

6.1

Love

Sixteen-year-old students of a grammar school are supposed to write essays on "Love". The class best student Andrea (Jaroslava Schallerová) writes about a patriotic love to a country as she has no experience with a partner love. She has been living alone with her divorced pretty mother Eva (Milena Dvorská), a dentist, for many years. Recently, however, Eva met her former school-days love at a graduates' party, nowadays a famous hockey goalkeeper Brukner (Frantisek Velecký). Also his marriage fell apart; he leaves the national team and decides to leave Prague for his home town and to share flat with Eva. He takes with him his son Petr (Oldrich Kaiser), in Andrea's age, who gets his last chance to finish a grammar school in the town.

4.9

Slingboy

A young Czech boy is freed from a concentration camp and now is working for the army against the Germans.

6.7

The Hope

A group of outcasts, including a vagabond and a prostitute, gather at the outskirts of the industrial area of a large Czech city, one of the things that helps some of them survive is alcohol.

7.2

The Ear

Government bureaucrat Ludvik becomes suspicious after several colleagues disappear and he overhears something strange at a cocktail party. Returning home with his wife, Anna, he finds their house under surveillance and spends a fraught night worrying about his possible arrest in the morning. Marital difficulties come to light as Ludvik and his wife attempt to act normal in front of the cameras while dredging up their problems out of sight.

6.0

The Cow

Adam is a young farmer. As a child, fleeing the bleak reality of his mother's life as a prostitute, he tumbled from a mountain and was mentally injured. Years later, his mother is dying, so Adam sells their only cow to pay for medicine. Rosa, a beautiful young maid, fleeing the sexual exploitation of a wealthy butcher, climbs up to join them on their remote farm and dares to become part of Adam's world. A cycle of life begins again, in a remote turn-of-the-century village tied to the land and its animals.

6.8

The Little Mermaid

The little mermaid rescues a prince from drowning and falls in love with him. To be with him, she makes a deal with the evil sorceress: her beautiful voice against a life on land.

7.4

Forbidden Dreams

Leo Popper is a happy family man living in rural Bohemia in the years preceding the Nazi invasion. Out of economic necessity he moves with his family to the big city and becomes an enterprising vacuum cleaner salesman. There he embarks on a series of adulterous adventures, has encounters with boxing pros and famous portrait artists, and schemes to purchase the perfect pond to fulfill his passion for fishing. When the Nazis gain control, the comedy turns sour - he loses his lake, his job, and finally, his family.

6.3

Jumping Over Puddles

This Czechoslovakian children’s film takes place during the last days of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The young son of a horse trainer loves nothing more than riding his horse, until he is stricken by polio…

6.4

Love Between the Raindrops

Set in Prague during the years leading up to World War II, this family saga tells the story of a cobbler named Vincenc Bursik (Vladimir Mensik), who uproots his clan from the country to the city, only to suffer the loss of his wife and the failure of his shoe business within months. When his daughter moves away to go live with a wealthy businessman as his mistress, Vincenc is left to take care of his two sons, who spend their days in a secret garden vying for the affections of a teenage girl.

4.9

Kožené slunce

As the name suggests, the movie is about football. It is not about big league soccer, making huge money. It is about football, which lives just from village fans enthusiasm, from the enthusiasm of fathers and their sons and club officials. And yet on this battlefield, where the pub and silent household alternates, it is often about everything: friends, family, the meaning of life. It is about playing fair, but also about fighting below the belt. It is about winning, but also about falling into the abyss of the league wilderness.

4.5

Dobré světlo

Viktor Průcha, a successful small-town architect, lives well but knows his comfort rests on compromises. When an elderly man—whose granddaughter was hurt at a school Viktor approved beside a busy road—attacks him and then takes his own life, Viktor abandons his home for a rural studio. There he rediscovers nude photography; his acclaimed exhibition forces him to confront past concessions and choose his future.

6.5

Golden Eels

A little boy, named Prdelka, traveled with his father from Prague to the country during the Second World War. There, the boy became friends with a local fisherman and learned to catch the golden eels. Eventually, his father and mother were arrested by the Nazis and the boy stayed with the fisherman.

5.0

Hanele

Based on an autobiographical novella by Ivan Olbracht, the film tells the story of Hanele Safarová, who grows up just after the First World War in a little Ruthenian schtetl which, in true Hassidic fashion, awaits the arrival of the Messiah. But Hanele decides to follow the Zionists instead. She moves to the city to prepare for her departure to the Promised Land, where she meets a successful businessman named Ivo Karadzic, who has renounced Judaism to become a free-thinker. Their love for each other doesn’t only drive Hanele’s parents to distraction, it also threatens to destroy the entire community in the schetl.

8.0

A Ridiculous Gentleman

When a noted professor receives a new treatment for his heart ailment, his outlook on life changes. Despite doctor's orders, he is determined to live out his final days on his own terms and fulfill his fantasies. He saves the life of a young woman who tries to kill herself after his recovery from heart surgery in this symbolic story of a man trying to determine his own fate in his last days alive.

6.8

Attention, Rounds!

A story about an everyday life of an inflectional department of Prague hospital.

6.7

Appeal to Your Love

A sad story about love between Czech boy and German girl during 1944.

5.8

Sestricky

A Czech psychological film about the school of life, its sorrows and beauties. The main character is a young aspiring nurse Marie Sahulová, who, after a trouble in the hospital - she secretly brought a boy to her boarding school - is transferred to a rural health centre, where together with an old doctor and a peculiar nurse she has to travel around twenty-five villages and a number of solitudes in the harsh environment of the neglected villages of the 1950s. The nurse, a wise and experienced woman whom no one calls anything other than "babi", becomes her guide, who introduces her to the practice and the pitfalls of private life in a distinctive way. In the mosaic of everyday worries and more or less serious medical interventions, Marie matures and finds the meaning of her work and life.