Favourite Central European Films

Set in 13th-century Europe, a young boy joins the Teutonic Knights. Years later, he leaves the Crusaders, pursued by a fanatical comrade. He faces repercussions for rejecting the Holy Order.

This is a ballad about love, hate, and a search for a way out of loneliness. It is a dramatic story about the strange potter, Martin Lepis, nicknamed Dragon, who is suspected by the villagers as the cause of natural disasters. He loses his beloved, his home, and his freedom due to false accusations. After years he returns to his native village. Putting his own life to risk, he saves a herd of cattle from a forest fire in the hills. But not even this heroic deed helps him to win back the friendship of the locals.

Two scientists are placed into a 3-year hibernation, but when they wake up, it turns out to have been 50 years, and they are the only two males in a new underground society composed exclusively of women.

A WW2 story of a young Austrian soldier running from the Russian army and a woman whom he forces to come along in order to save his wounded mate.

The outrageous Baron Munchausen tells of his many adventures, from meeting the Man in the Moon to defeating a Turkish army all by himself.

In this gothic rendition of the classic fairy tale, a merchant's youngest daughter is held prisoner by a mysterious winged beast.

Lemuel Gulliver (Lubomír Kostelka) has had a car accident and continues his journey across the unknown countryside on foot. On the road he finds a dead rabbit dressed like a man and takes a watch from its waistcoat breast pocket. The half-ruined house that he enters reminds Lemuel of his childhood and brings up a painful memory of a dearly loved girl Markéta who was drowned years ago. Gulliver finds himself in Balnibarbi, a country where he doesn't understand the laws and habits and so continually offends against public decency. It is a day when people are ordered to keep their mouths shut and they force their visitor to follow suit. He faces harsh interrogation and finds it difficult to explain that he is not the rabbit Oscar whose watch has been found in his possession.

In this dreamlike Hungarian folk myth, a horse goddess gives birth to three powerful brothers who set out into the Underworld to save three princesses from three evil dragons and reclaim their ancestors' lost kingdom.

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.

The story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin with a twist.

An elegiac journey through Slovakia's Carpathian Mountain villages, with interviews of old peasants about the happiness and hardships in their lives.

Six-year-old Stefek challenges fate. He believes that setting a chain of events in motion will help him get closer to his father who left his mother. His sister helps him bribe fate with small sacrifices. Tricks and coincidences bring his father back but things go wrong and Stefek tries a very risky trick...

A wealthy small-town wiseguy organizes the wedding party for his daughter. As the party begins, unexpected events start to occur and disturb the party for the hosts and guests alike.

A young, idealistic poet turns his back on civilization and goes to a small, backwoods village, rents a bed in the house of an old woman, and decides to make his living as a lumberjack. He soon realizes that the world around him is far from perfect. He does not make any real contact with the people in the village. An then another outcast like him rents a bed in the same house.

Examines the human relationship with food by showing breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

A surrealistic revision of Alice in Wonderland.

Rose, a German widow, hides from Russian soldiers who like to rape women and fights off Polish refugees who will steal everything she has. She gets help when Tadeusz, a former Polish officer, arrives looking to hide from his past.

In a Nazi concentration camp, an escapee awaiting execution is spared when the commandant, a former prize-fighter, discovers the prisoner has amateur boxing ability. Ordered to train, he gradually sharpens his skills.

A poetic film about a dove getting lost on its way to Prague getting shot down by a paralyzed boy. An artist who finds the dove becomes friends with the boy. Together they take care of it bringing it back to recovery.

A man searches for survival after nuclear war forces people into an underground bunker. The inhabitants await rescue while their refuge decays around them.

A young boy becomes an apprentice for a mysterious sorcerer, working at the sorcerer's strange and sinister mill where secretive black magic is being taught and performed at a very heavy price.

A soon-to-be lawyer crosses his path with a taxi driver and a young sinister man.

A look at the glamorous life at an old-world Prague hotel.

The travails of rural widows in Czechoslovakia.