Known for Acting
In the 1600s, an overzealous clergy hauls innocent women in front of tribunals, forces them to confess to imaginary witchery, and engages in brutal torture and persecution of their subjects.
Captain Martin from the police's child department and his colleague Kraus are called to Znojmo to help solve a case regarding stolen toys found in the town's subterranean passages. The members of the local police department are convinced that the thieves are the well-known "customers" from the Znojmo elementary school, pupils Exner and Mandlík. Martin, however, has doubts about these culprits. These doubts grow even stronger after the local self-service shop is robbed and the local tobacco store reports that it is missing a lot of imported cigarettes. Martin questions the children, inspects both shops and searches through the underground.
A tragicomedy set in a village where it depicts a diverse assemblage of old geezers spending the autumn of their lives in different ways. Some are amused by watching cars speeding around an obscure bend, but one agonises over both humiliating poverty (his pension is barely enough to buy the most basic food) and the rude behaviour of those closest to him.
A film in five episodes, all based on an attempt to show the life of young people today, their feelings and relationships, their behaviour in public and private life.
Ten-year-old Martin attends religion at school and is always an altar boy at church. That's the wish of his mother Anci, a bigoted believer. However, Martin encounters hypocrisy at every turn and begins to doubt that God exists. His older brother Eda steals money from his father with impunity, his father steals materials from the cooperative building, and even Martin's best friend Kovajs "sins" without scruples. Pastor Hornof tries in various ways to maintain his influence over his sheep, but is hindered by people with a "progressive" socialist mindset. When Martin's beloved Angora rabbits, who have done nothing wrong to anyone, die, the boy's faith is clear. He decides to join a pioneer organisation. All that's left is to keep it a secret from his mother...
Prague in the 1870s. Work in Smolík's sulphur factory is hard and dangerous to health. The poorly paid workers resemble torches because their clothes are soaked with poisonous phosphorus. Young Josef Rezler also works in the sulphur factory and uses his earnings to feed his mother and little sisters. He throws his perpetually drunken father out of the house. The older worker Brož forces Josef to learn to read and write. A cholera epidemic breaks out in Prague and Josef is the only one of his family to survive the disease...
In this crime story, surprisingly, neither the all-powerful criminals nor the spies or saboteurs are pursued, as was once common. The plot is almost mundane: someone unwittingly siphoned off alcohol from a tanker, unaware that it was deadly methyl alcohol, intended for industrial use. Finding out where the poison has been transported and which people it endangers requires painstaking work.
May 1945. On the outskirts of Prague, ordinary people meet Soviet soldiers-liberators with tears of joy in their eyes. In the early days of the lull, someone sadly recalls a pre-war life; someone unexpectedly meets his love; someone is returning from enemy dungeons looking hopefully into the future; and someone, having moved from a tank into a Czech tram, warmly recalls his craft as a car driver... These days, all those who survived the Great War fire swear an oath to keep peace on Earth forever, honoring the memory of those who gave their lives for simple human happiness.
František Brych, a principled lawyer, refuses to back the new Communist regime at his factory and grows increasingly alienated, even as his former love Irena, unhappily married to factory owner Ondřej Ráž, seeks his understanding. When he helps plan an escape over the Šumava border, the group’s panic and violence lead to murder, prompting Brych to abandon the scheme and return home with Irena.
Although the emancipated editor of a women's magazine proclaims that grandparents in particular should not be abused by their adult children, she accepts without scruple the fact that her mother, still a sprightly pensioner, works in her household as a jack-of-all-trades without receiving not only any pay but also no recognition. However, the grandmother learns from an article written by her daughter - and rebels.
After the battle of Sudoměř the Hussite teaching spreads through the whole country and people start leaving their homes to help build the fortification of Tábor. Prague citizens request help against the army of Zikmund. The Hussite army with Jan Žižka in the lead make their way towards Prague. They fortify themselves on the mountain Vítkov and engage in a bloody battle with Zikmund’s huge army.
