Czech That Film

Jan Palach
Friday, June 7 at 4:15pm
Director: Robert Sedlácek | Fiction Feature | 2018

This biopic describes the last months of the life of an uncompromising young man who attempts to rouse a nation from its growing lethargy in order to protest the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

Winter Flies (Všechno bude)
Friday, June 7 at 7:00pm
Director: Olmo Omerzu | Fiction Feature | 2018

An interrogation of tall tales of exploits is contrasted against awkwardness, innocence, and adulthood as a rebellious teenager and his dorky sidekick steal an Audi to run away through the Czech countryside experiencing a sense of unbridled freedom.

The Hastrman
Friday, June 7 at 9:15pm
Director: Ondrej Havelka | Fiction Feature | 2018

This romantic fantasy follows the story of the Hastrman, a water spirit who needs water to sustain his life and gain superhuman strength, as he contemplates whether to remain a wild creature or cross the boundaries of intimacy with a human.

Garden Store: Deserter (Dezertér)
Saturday, June 8 at 1:30pm
Director: Jan Hrebejk | Fiction Feature | 2017

Nazi imprisonment survivor Otto must disappear or risk losing his life after his upscale hair styling salon in the center of Prague is expropriated by the state with the communists’ rise to power.

Garden Store: Suitor (Nápadník)
Saturday, June 8 at 4:15pm
Director: Jan Hrebejk | Fiction Feature | 2017

Love begins to bloom between city girl Daniela and country boy Mirek at the garden store run by her aunt and uncle. However, Daniela’s father has other plans for her with a more educated man.

Short Cut (Na krátko)
Saturday, June 8 at 7:00pm
Director: Jakub Šmíd | Fiction Feature | 2018

Director Jakub Šmíd and Jaroslav Kanturek, Consul General of the Czech Republic/Chicago, Attending!

Family ties are put to the test as eleven-year-old Jakub clashes with his stepsister, domineering grandma, and misleading mother who makes his father out to be someone he's not.

Golden Sting (Zlatý podraz)
Sunday, June 9 at 1:20pm
Director: Radim Špacek | Fiction Feature | 2018

A Czechoslovakian basketball team defends their title after winning the European Championship in Geneva despite having lost their American Mormon basketball coach a few years prior when World War II erupted.

Patrimony (Tátova Volha)
Sunday, June 9 at 4:15pm
Director: Jirí Vejdelek | Fiction Feature | 2018

Hidden family secrets are uncovered as the daughter of a newly widowed Eva latches onto the idea of an estranged stepbrother after an unknown child's drawing is found in the late husband's possessions.

Dukla 61
Sunday, June 9 at at 6:30pm
Director: David Ondrícek | Fiction Feature | 2018

This family drama examines a fire in a Dukla mineshaft, one of the Czech's greatest mining tragedies, and pays tribute to the brave miners that regarded their work as a mission, even though they risked their lives each and every day.

Singin' in the Grain - a Minnesota Czech story
June 10-11 at 4:15pm & 7:00pm
Director: Al Milgrom, Daniel Geiger | Documentary Feature | 2019

All-singing, all-dancing, this is the lively, lovely story of a village polka band and its city cousins, shot in the bread-basket of southern Minnesota. Singin' in the Grain captures what it means to be a Czech-American today and, by extension, one's own identity as an American.