The best Pavel Liška’s movies

From Paris in the 1960s to London in the first decade of the third millennium, Madeleine and her daughter Véra flit from one amorous adventure to the next, living for the moment and taking all the opportunities that life offers. But not every love affair is without its consequences, its upsets and its disappointments. As time goes by and gnaws away at one’s deepest feelings, love becomes a harder game to play.

Loosely based on two short stories by Edgar Allan Poe and inspired by the works of the Marquis de Sade. In 19th century France a young man is plagued by nightmares in which he is dragged off to a madhouse. On the journey back from his mother’s funeral he is invited by a Marquis he meets at lunch to spend the night in his castle. There he witnesses a blasphemous orgy and a ‘therapeutic’ funeral. He tries to flee but is taken to a lunatic asylum where the patients have complete freedom and the staff are locked up behind bars.

When Oskar, a self-centred TV weatherman, cheats on his wife Zuzana with their au pair, she kicks him to the curb and enlists her in-laws in the search for a new boyfriend.

Milan and Goran are two criminals who smuggle illegal immigrants. One night after they complete a smuggle, they discover that one of the immigrants has left a baby behind. Milan and Goran decide to sell the baby to Lubos and Eman, who are responsible for running an illegal baby adoption center. Lubos and Eman make attempts to sell the baby to Miluska and Frantisek, a barren couple.

A gifted and well-qualified young teacher takes a job teaching natural sciences at a grammar school in the country. Here he makes the acquaintance of a woman and her troubled 17-year old son. The teacher has no romantic interest in the woman but they quickly form a strong friendship, each recognizing the other's uncertainties, hopes and longing for love.

A young boy lives with his mother on a farm surrounded by deep forest in the remote wilds of the Finnish countryside. From time to time, the boy visits his father - a man of great violence - in prison. Locked in the stable is an unruly horse, the boy´s only other companion. Their simple life is disrupted when a stranger appears, with a note from the father and a bullet in his side. Reluctantly, mother and son offer the stranger refuge.

This fascinating historical drama looks at the life of "the Czech Schindler," Zdenek Toman, a controversial figure who was an unsavory politician and dubious entrepreneur, but also the savior of hundreds of Eastern European Jews.

Young Ondra has asthma and so his parents throw away his favourite toy: a musty old stuffed bear named Kooky. That night Ondra dreams that Kooky is determined to find his way back home from the dump. In the boy's fantasy, the bear gets lost in a forest occupied by strange animals and remarkable beings that he never heard of while living on the toy shelf in Ondra's room. And of course even in this small imaginary world, true good exists as does real evil, which Kooky must face up to in order to become a real hero.

This adaptation of a book by Jiří Marek consists of four animated episodes that are interconnected by a live-action element.

The Little Man lives happily in his little house in the Hollow Mountain. His peaceful life ends once he begins to have dreams about a mysterious house where he is to find what he desires. Even though he does not feel like having any desires, he crack the mystery himself. (A-Company CZ)

Over the course of a year, in a small town scarred and beaten down by industrialization, Tonda and Monika, friends since childhood, come to experience what life might be like if they could be with one another – which they seemingly can't. Or can they?

“The fact that I’m playing myself doesn’t mean that it’s me.” Four old schoolmates, today well-known Czech actors (Pavel Liška, Tomáš Matonoha, Josef Polášek and Marek Daniel), decide to make a movie together. Their ambitious colleague Jan Budař takes up directing duties and financing has arrived from Poland. What started out pleasantly enough, however, soon goes awry. Liška’s pronunciation difficulties, Daniel’s alter ego Havlát, and Matonoha’s financial machinations turn the shoot into a fight for survival. More than just a film about friendship and the absurdity of actors’ lives, director Marek Najbrt gives us a witty meditation on reality and illusion, and a unique take on the reality film genre. One of Pavel Liška’s on-set comments (“I didn’t know if I should act as if I were acting, or act as if I weren’t acting, or just not act at all”) illustrates the provocative nature of Najbrt’s subversive, quasi-documentary game.

A story that takes place during Advent, we'll meet again with your favorite pair angel Petronel and devil Urias. Their eternal wrangling causes the rare apple from the tree of the knowledge to roll on earth. And that God is really angry. Petronel with Urias find themselves in a small Czech town on the eve of the feast of St. Nicholas. And after a series of human and "divine" tests our heroes eventually find that the path to knowledge leads primarily through self discovery through the strength of friendship, love and forgiveness skills.