Ivo Špalj

Into the Darkness (2023)

What led a former top scientist to rob a bank and hold a dozen hostages? Czech Television's crime thriller based on Martin Goffa's novel "The Little Girl" is squeezed into two environments - the interior of a robbed bank with hostages and the interior of ...

Engi – Sound Designer Ivo Špalj (2023)

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 (*19 ...

Heaven (2021)

Tomáš Etzler worked for seven years as a foreign correspondent in China. He came to know a country that was developing at an admirably fast pace, was swayed by its energy, and for a moment believed that modernity could bring about political change as wel ...

Alchemical Furnace (2020)

Jan Svankmajer, at 85 years of age, is one of the most prominent artists of European cinema. His work has inspired and guided generations of directors, and represents a sharp and merciless exploration of human nature which is entirely unique. When he decid ...

Terezínské stíny (2020)

Animation of recently discovered floor drawings on the wall of the former ghetto, combined with a reference to the opera Brundibár, which was supposed to become proof to the world of the wonderful lives of imprisoned children. ...

Jiří Trnka: A Long Lost Friend (2019)

A story of an extraordinary artist who has unintentionally signed a deal with a devil. Jiří Trnka was one of the biggest Czech artists of the 20th century and one of the founders of the puppet animation. His work demonstrated the world that communist soc ...

Insect (2018)

The Dung Beetle is late, the Parasite is asleep and Mrs Larva is more interested in her knitting than the director's instructions. It's clear: this amateur theatre company has a long way to go before they can perform their version of "The Insect Play", a f ...

Narco Blues (2016)

On summer vacation a young teenager finds himself hanging out alone on the streets of his neighbourhood, all his friends having gone to the country with their parents. Near his home he meets a disturbing character, a drug pusher looking for clients, who in ...

Pat & Mat in a Movie (2016)

The hero of the popular Czech animated series Pat and Mat, have come to us with their more or less successful, always comedy house repairs. In memory of the times of true cartoons, which marked the youth of many generations, the legendary home-based master ...

Transport R (2015)

A poetic, but chilling story of seven puppets in train car prior to its journey to a concentration camp. ...

Surviving Life (Theory and Practice) (2010)

Eugene, an aging man, leads a double life - one real, the other in his dreams. He goes to see a psychoanalyst, who tries to interpret the meaning of his dreams. Eugene finds a way of entering his dream-world at will and finds out about his childhood and wh ...

Heart Above the Castle (2008)

A neon heart installed above Prague Castle illuminated the city for the last three months of Václav Havel's presidency in an artist's tribute to his extraordinary service. His last major undertaking was hosting the NATO summit in 2002 and Němec was grant ...

Fimfarum 2 (2006)

The sequel to the successful film Fimfárum by Jan Werich. Four brand new stories "for clever children and clever adults" from the popular book written by Jan Werich. Břetislav Pojar introduces the story of little Tom Thumb full of twists and adventure. A ...

Lunacy (2005)

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. ...

Toyen (2005)

Jan Nemec, a leading filmmaker of the Czech New Wave, creates an original portrait of one of the most provocative artists of the 20th century: Toyen (Marie Cerminova). As a female artist, Toyen broke through the male-dominated art world to create paintings ...

Jan Werich's Fimfarum (2002)

Humorous as well as educational stories about magical and everyday problems, about devils, miracles, ordinary human vices and wisdom. The graphic design of the stories reflects the humour and the atmosphere of the stories Fimfárum, When the Leaves Fall fr ...

Frames (2001)

Little Otik (2001)

When a childless couple learn that they cannot have children, it causes great distress. To ease his wife's pain, the man finds a piece of root in the backyard and chops it and varnishes it into the shape of a child. However the woman takes the root as her ...

Rodinné kroniky (2000)

Bajky ze zahrady (2000)

The Mumps (2000)

In the diary of a six-year-old girl, Marie, we learn what important things happened during one holiday month before she started first grade and how she perceived the changes in her family. ...

Mrtvý les (2000)

Spring of Life (2000)

The film, 'The Spring Of Life', brings to light a little-known operation of the Nazi SS, started just before the outbreak of World War II. Through the careful selection and re-education of young women, it was the Nazi's mad dream to create an Aryan 'master ...

Média (2000)

This combined film (black and white drawings of human hands and objects) is a parable on power and the motives affecting modern society. ...

Eliška Likes It Hot (1999)

A sensual summer comedy for discerning audiences. In a small town with a nostalgic swimming pool, a variety bar, and a pink pastry shop, a couple in love, an aging playboy, a lifeguard, and a variety artist named Marčélo and his much younger wife Eliška ...

Mashkin kills Koshkin (1999)

The puppet film Mashkin Killed Koshkin, based on the short story of the same name by Daniil Kharms, is a small, absurd story of two heroes who personify the essence of the so-called "Russian soul". ...

Helluva Good Luck (1999)

Dora, a lazy and evil woman, is in love with her servant, Hannes. Hannes, however, loves her sister-in-law, Margareta. When Dora learns about this, she vows revenge against the couple. ...

The Emperor and the Drummer (1998)

A fairy tale based on motifs taken from Josephine tales. Like Josef II, the fictitious emperor Maxmilián often disappears from the castle in disguise in order to find out how his vassals live. On one of these 'trips' he meets a drummer returning home from ...

Co chytneš v žitě (1998)

This bittersweet film was Roman Vávra's feature debut. The film consists of three independent stories, all connected through the motif of a field of grain. In 'Awn' a young couple takes a summer stroll in the country, in 'The Haystack' a gang of boys have ...

Biograf (1998)

Rychlé pohyby očí (1998)

A film about fatal love, bad dreams, normal madness and unnecessary death. ...

Sekal Has to Die (1998)

ComiBaran, a protestant blacksmith arrives in the little village of Lakotice to kill Sekal, a cruel Nazi collaborator. ...

Ať žije myš (1998)

A man watches a cartoon of a cat and mouse, and cheers as the mouse scores a victory over the cat. ...

Halt, Or I'll Miss! (1998)

It is April 1945, spring begins and ends the war. German transport heading away from Bohemia. ...

Queen of the Lake (1998)

Prince Victor looks in vain for a swan which was wounded by one of his servants. Instead he discovers a beautiful girl with golden hair who has an arrow in her shoulder. She is dumb and can't explain her origin. He falls immediately for her. The girl quick ...

Ruffiano and Sweeteeth (1997)

Famed outlaw Lotrando sends his son to a strict Catholic boarding school to learn manners, but the boy becomes too polite to lead the band. When they inadvertently arrive in a sultanate where the princess Zubeida lies gravely ill and are mistaken for physi ...

Do nebíčka (1997)

After her mother's death, twelve-year-old Johana lives only with her father, who is clearly unable to raise her on his own. Therefore, she is sent to spend her holidays with her uncle, who lives alone on a rural farm. Johana, who is attracted to everything ...

Eastern Bloodthirsty Hugo (1997)

The film animation technique of pixilation was used in this short comedy. The notorious criminal Bloodthirsty Hugo has broken out of prison again. He is an arsonist, has no respect for old people and absolutely no maiden in the region is safe with him on t ...

Duel (1997)

An animation film about a clarinet and a trumpet that meet, clash, compete, compromise and harmonize. ...

Code Name: Ruby (1996)

This controversial feature blends documentary, archival footage and fiction into an elliptical narrative in which two young people in Prague, an ancient seat for the practice of alchemy, follow the trail for the mystical philosopher's stone. History and fu ...

Conspirators of Pleasure (1996)

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 br ...

Král Ubu (1996)

A cruel picture of the ways in which human beings acquire power and then cling to it. The story of Father Ubu, an idiot who climbs over the bodies of the dead to his royal post, is presented with a touch of the grotesque where naive comic elements meet bla ...

Kolya (1996)

After a fictitious marriage with a Russian emigrant, Cellisten Louka, a Czech man, must suddenly take responsibility for her son. However, it's not long before the communication barrier is broken between the two new family members. ...

Food (1996)

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

Učitel tance (1995)

A special story about love, dance, and immortality takes place in the late 1940s. A young man, dance master Mayer, arrives at a pulmonary sanatorium. His diagnosis is serious—tuberculosis. However, he does not give in to his illness and begins to activel ...

Faust (1994)

A very free adaptation of Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus", Goethe's "Faust" and various other treatments of the old legend of the man who sold his soul to the devil. A nondescript man is lured by a strange map into a sinister puppet theatre, where he finds hims ...

Accumulator 1 (1994)

In this movie, TV sets are full of life. If a person is in TV (e.g. because it was filmed on the street) it has a double that's right in the TV set. This double needs energy from the true character to survive. Each time, the real human watches TV, his Doub ...

Big Beat (1993)

A period musical comedy set in a quiet Prague quarter at the end of the fifties. Using the western plot device of the "man from nowhere" a generation gap story unfolds of changing social climate. The action is driven by the character of a young man named B ...

The Canary Connection (1993)

An interesting attempt at a postmodern crazy comedy with elements of parody. The plot turns on the search for the recipe of a liqueur made by the film's financial backer. ...

Words, Words, Words (1993)

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 t ...

Mystery of the Puzzle (1993)

A group of teenagers are trying to solve a mystery of a puzzle created and left to them by the dead boy. ...

Horror Story (1993)

The distinctive artist, typographer, and writer Josef Váchal is known to the public primarily for his Blood Novel. The surrealistic exuberance of this defense of 19th-century pulp fiction caught the attention of Jaroslav Brabec and his colleagues, who fou ...

The Inheritance or Fuckoffguysgoodday (1992)

Bohus is indolent and spends his days drinking brandy. One day he finds he has inherited a brickworks, several shops and a five-star hotel. Bohus sets out to tour his new empire, insulting everyone on the way. ...

Don Gio (1992)

The full-length film which, though based on Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, is more about the complexity of the time and the world. We witness the creation of a modern production of Don Giovanni, reflecting the controversial present. Mozart's exciting music, ...

Home (1991)

In the young man's imagination, the image of a mysterious house - a mystical building that symbolizes the spiritual world of an unknown faith - persistently returns. ...

The Flying Sneaker (1991)

Little Rehor isn't allowed to play with the other boys. His only friend is the girl next door, Luci. Rehor's father is doctor on a boat and he has sent Rehor a package with butterfly larvae. When they hatch he discover a fairy who can do magic tricks. ...

Flames of Royal Love (1991)

In 1992, Prague is the capital of a small kingdom. The prince is supposed to choose his bride to be at a royal ball. But to everybody's surprise, he chooses an ugly cleaning-woman. She is shy and silent, but after the marriage she turns into a wild and rum ...

Pražákům, těm je hej (1991)

The story begins in 1984 in Prague, Czechoslovakia, few years before the end of Communist era. The band Pražský výběr (Prague's selection) has just received the news thier 5-year ban has expired and they are alowed to perform once again. This half fant ...

The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia (1991)

A bust of Stalin is cut open on an operating table, leading to an elaborate animated depiction of Czech history from 1948 (the Communist takeover) to 1989 (the Velvet Revolution). ...

When the Oak Leaves Fall (1991)

The story is a celebration of the cleverness and wit of the simple peasant Čupera, who triumphs not only over the demon of alcohol, but also over the bureaucratically persistent and thorough devil. The hell that the farmer goes through during the withdraw ...

Skřivánčí ticho (1990)

The hero of the story is a forty-something intellectual, a sensitive composer of classical music. His exclusive profession, his work, which is actually incomprehensible to those around him, and his deep inner passion set him apart from the conformist milie ...

Masseba (1990)

A tribe of survivors take possession of a large but rundown building, killing all who put up resistance - but they don't know that the building is cursed by some demon god and haunted by a girl in white that seems to know a dark secret. ...

Muka obraznosti (1990)

The film tells the story of an enthusiastic young man who joins a textile factory in the late 1950s and assumes that a promising career awaits him - the protagonist is therefore constantly comparing himself to his favourite literary model, the equally ambi ...

Darkness, Light, Darkness (1990)

A human body gradually reconstructs itself as its various component parts crowd themselves into a small room and eventually, after much experimentation, sort out which part goes where. ...

The Crossword Puzzle (1990)

A man obsessed with crossword puzzles ignores his wife's desire for intimacy ...

Swedish Package Holiday (1989)

Three intertwined stories about Serbian truck driver who is involved into drug trafficking without knowing, Czech family who live by the road which makes them a lot of troubles since many cars crash into their house, and a bus full of Swedish grannies who ...

Mean Barbara (1989)

When the village school master discovers the body of a mean-spirited, miserly old woman, with whom he has had a disagreement, he decides to dispose of the body himself without alerting anyone else to it, but when the body is discovered by another villager ...

Meat Love (1989)

Two pieces of meat fall in love. ...

Bread and Show (1988)

Alice (1988)

A quiet young English girl named Alice finds herself in an alternate version of her own reality after chasing a white rabbit. She becomes surrounded by living inanimate objects and stuffed dead animals, and must find a way out of this nightmare - no matter ...

Shakespeare 2000 (1988)

A satiric film travesty of Shakespeare's dramas set in the year 2000. The protagonists are to convince the audience that human passions such as love, hatred, jealousy, etc. remain unchanged even 500 years later (paralleling the up-to-date quality of Shakes ...

Virile Games (1988)

A man sits down to watch a football match, which seems to consist of the players being violently mutilated in various inventive ways. The players then leave the football pitch and invade the spectator's flat. ...

Another Kind of Love (1988)

Svankmajer's music video for Hugh Cornwell's "Another Kind of Love. ...

The Tinderbox (1987)

A modern version of a classical fairy-tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a veteran who got rich thanks to a magic flint and thus he could marry a beautiful princess. ...

Curriculum vitae (1987)

An artistic animated short showing the life in secondary school. ...

From step to progress (1987)

A cartoon in the form of a comic describes the process of development of human thought. ...

Sněhová královna (1987)

Die Irrfahrten des Odysseus (1986)

On a lonely island, where Odysseus has to serve the nymph Calypso, he remembers his great adventures: the glorious victory over Troy; the curse of the sea god Poseidon, whose son he overpowered; the wrestling with Circe, the Lotophagi, the Sirens with thei ...

Sen noci... (1986)

The film recording of the ballet performance of the State Theatre in Brno was expensively realized in a theatrically stylized set built in the Barrandov studios. The original ballet music by Václav Trojan, based on Shakespeare's fairy tale comedy, was pre ...

The Pied Piper (1986)

A darkly brilliant stop-motion adaptation of The Pied Piper of Hamelin about a plague of rats that punish townsfolk corrupt with greed. One of Czechoslovakia's most ambitious animation projects of the 1980s, notable for its unusual dark art direction, inn ...

Microbe (1986)

A microbe enters the bloodstream of a young woman. ...

Restaurant (1986)

Even heroes can turn into raging rioters by chance. A cartoon of a distinctive personality - author, artist and director Jaroslava Havettová. ...

Barrandovské nokturno aneb Jak film tančil a zpíval (1985)

The 50th anniversary of the Barrandov studios was celebrated with a spectacular show: many directors and other important people gathered in the expensive decorations of the Variety Theatre auditorium (built for the Circus Humberto series). They smiled and ...

Chronicle Of The Pied Piper (1985)

A behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of Barta's masterpiece. ...

Amadeus (1984)

Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Salzburger composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. ...

Lady Poverty (1984)

A tragicomic story about Lady Poverty who, unmistakably and without any hesitation, catches one lazy fellow after another. However, she is helpless when she comes across a diligent and work-loving fellow. Poverty simply cannot be destroyed, but it can be d ...

Shoe Show (1984)

While the humans are away, the shoes in a cobbler's workshop engage in a number of activities, including flirting, kidnapping and a gunfight. ...

Svatohor (1984)

This animated puppet film based on Russian folk tales tells the story of the hero Svätohor and his battle with the dragon Goryn Gorynych. ...

Down to the Cellar (1983)

A little girl goes down to the basement cellar to fetch some potatoes, and finds all her hidden fears about the cellar depicted in animated form. ...

The Pit, the Pendulum and Hope (1983)

Animated short film based on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum" and Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's "A Torture by Hope". ...

Dimensions of Dialogue (1983)

Three surreal depictions of failures of communication that occur on all levels of human society. ...

A Ballad About Green Wood (1983)

Pieces of wood are captured by a crow and dance in celebration of spring in this animated short film. ...

Players (1982)

Cartoon tennis match, with players based on Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe. ...

Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, a Sailor from York (1982)

The picture, unlike the other film adaptations of the story, focuses much more on Crusoe's life before and after his stay on the island. Following the principle of setting the novel right, it describes Crusoe's experiences with delicate irony and understan ...

The Fall of the House of Usher (1982)

In this animated version of Edgar Allan Poe's story, a traveller arrives at the Usher mansion to find that the sibling inhabitants are living under a mysterious family curse. The brother's senses have become painfully acute, while his sister has become nea ...

The Vanished World of Gloves (1982)

Using an array of gloves in different styles and from different historical periods, the film is a short history of the cinema - from silent movies via pastiches of Buñuel and Fellini and Close Encounters of the Third Kind to a futurist junkyard where tin ...

Blues pro EFB (1980)

An image and music collage - a cinema concert - guided by a young sound engineer David, for whom the exhibition on E. F. Burian is an incentive to take more interest in this avant-garde artist. The film interweaves two strands - documentary and factual, dr ...

The King and the Goblin (1980)

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. ...

The Heads (1980)

An animated exploration of the human head ...

The Spectre's Bride (1978)

A dead soldier comes for his fiancée from the grave. ...

Omnifurous (1978)

A king and his three daughters must contend with the hairy wiles of the "ugly bastard" known as Omnifurous. ...

Master Hanus (1977)

One of the film stories based on the old Prague legends. This one is about the old master clock maker Hanus who construed the Prague Old Town astronomical clock. Master Hanus' clock started working for the first time in 1490 but did not tell the time for t ...

Castle of Otranto (1977)

An adaptation of the 1764 work of the same name, the first Gothic novel. In this mockumentary, the amateur archaeologist Dr. Vozáb has set to prove that the supernatural ghost love story takes place not in Italy, but in Otranto Castle near Náchod in Czec ...

Faust's House (1977)

A film story based on the old Prague legends. It tells about a poor student lured by wealth, which he prefers to knowledge. In the end, he sells his soul to the evil powers. The Devil takes him to hell and since then there is a blackened hole on the ceilin ...

Královské usínání (1975)

Jen láska (1975)

Hund über Bord (1972)

It's the holidays and a German freighter captain takes his whole family - his wife, ten-year-old Klaus and five-year-old Andrea - on a cruise to Czechoslovakia. The children have secretly smuggled Jackie the Fox Terrier aboard... ...

Maryša (1972)

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 ...

Kinoautomat (1971)

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 betwee ...

The Ossuary (1970)

A non-narrative voyage round Sedlec Ossuary, which has been constructed from over 50,000 human skeletons (victims of the Black Death). ...

Don Juan (1969)

The age-old story of Don Juan, played by giant puppets. ...

Princezna Pampeliška (1967)

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 wor ...

Engi – Sound Designer Ivo Špalj (2023)

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 (*19 ...