Sound
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A look at the legendary Czech sound designer and his profession. Editor and documentary filmmaker Adéla Špaljová has her father Ivo Špalj talk about his life, career, and working methods. Over the course of his long life, sound designer Ivo Špalj (*1940) has collaborated on hundreds of films and become a mentor for at least one generation of men and women behind the mixing board. This gentle documentary also shows “Engi” (as he is known to his colleagues) again working with Jan Švankmajer, whose films he has lent their typical, dense, and sophisticated sound mix.
Maryša, a peasant daughter, is forced by her greedy parents to marry a rich miller, a widower with three children. But she loves the village scoundrel Franck, who has no hope against Vávra. Francek goes to the army and Maryša and Vávra go to catechism with the priest. Maryša and Vávra's marriage is unhappy. The parents also realize their mistake, especially Lízal, who offers his daughter to return home. Maryša refuses and also rejects the proposal of Franck, who has returned from the army and asks her to run away to Brno with him. She chooses a tragic solution...
Wealthy but alone, a king spends his days obsessively polishing shiny objects throughout his opulent castle. After a visit from a puckish forest wizard, the king earns a blessing – or curse – that turns anything he touches to gold.
A cartoon in the form of a comic describes the process of development of human thought.
An artistic animated short showing the life in secondary school.
In a cafe, people talk, their words become expresively-shaped balloons. An older waiter tries to connect with a young woman who's reading. She brushes him off, but gets into an animated and romantic conversation with a young man. A dog goes from table to table drinking beer and wine when people aren't looking. Older men talk about sexual conquests until one of their wives interrupts them. The young couple argues; he starts to leave, she pleads, he leaves anyway. The waiter tries to help. Old guys talk until they nod off. Women chat. Later, as the waiter cleans up, the finds the young woman's book. He sighs, the dog sleeps it off.
While the humans are away, the shoes in a cobbler's workshop engage in a number of activities, including flirting, kidnapping and a gunfight.
Kinoautomat was the world's first interactive movie, conceived by Radúz Činčera for the Czechoslovak Pavilion at Expo '67 in Montreal. At nine points during the film the action stops, and a moderator appears on stage to ask the audience to choose between two scenes; following an audience vote, the chosen scene is played.
The king is broke, so he welcomes when a rich Spanish king asks about his daughter, Dandelion. But Dandelion does not love the king and prefers to run away from home. On the run, she meets the son of a poor moneylender, Honza, and they set out into the world together. Unfortunately, love does not save them from the princess's sad fate. Because in autumn, dandelions turn their clothes into white fluff, which the wind blows away...
Six Prague residents pursue bizarre rituals. Mr. Peony builds a chicken costume to wear while enacting homicidal fantasies toward neighbor Mrs. Loubalova, who does the same dressed as a dominatrix. Their mail carrier, Mrs. Malkova, inhales tiny balls of bread. Newsstand operator Mr. Kula obsessively watches the broadcasts of news anchor Mrs. Beltinska, whose husband regularly scrubs his body.
A man takes up residence with a mysterious marquis and is soon persuaded to enter into an asylum for preventative therapy. Things are not what they seem, and the marquis may be even more sinister than what the young man might have predicted.