שבוע צ'כי 2025

פסטיבל הסרטים חיפה

בכפר קטן בצ'כיה מתנגשות שתי משפחות. מצד אחד של הגדר חי יוזף, שעזב משרת הייטק בעיר לטובת חווה אקולוגית צנועה. הפרנסה לא קלה אך הוא מנסה לחיות בשלווה עם אשתו ושלושת ילדיו, אווזים ותרנגולות ועצי פרי. מן הצד השני של הגדר חי ויקטור, שמנהל חווה רחבת ידיים ורווחית, שמצריכה ריסוס מרובה. והמחלוקות גולשות גם אל תוך הבתים, אל הפערים בין הדורות, כאשר מסורת ועקשנות מתנגשות בתקווה ואהבה צעירה. צריך יהיה אירוע טרגי כדי לגשר על הפערים. דרמה שמביטה בחיבה ובחמלה בקשרי משפחה ובאהבה. הנופים הירוקים-צהובים עוטפים את הסרט במעטפת על-זמנית ומזכירים לנו את האחריות שלנו, הן לסביבה והן אחד כלפי השני.

112 דקות, צ'כית, כתוביות בעברית.

Czech Film Week 2025

The annual showcase of Czech film, Czech Film Week, will take place in August 2025. The festival will run from August 17th and will again offer a selection of Czech cinema from the 1960s to the present day. Like last year, audiences will be able to watch Czech films in cinemateques across Israel: in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Holon, Herzliya, and Rosh Pina.

This year's festival aims to present Czech film not only through its history but also in its genre diversity. It will showcase the best of Czech sci-fi, a film banned by communist censorship, animation for the entire family, and movies addressing pressing contemporary issues.

The main film of this year's festival is Restore Point (2023). This ambitious sci-fi thriller set in the near future tackles the possibility of extending human life using advanced technologies. These technologies allow people to create a backup of their personality, from which they can be restored in case of sudden death. The story begins with the destruction of such a backup, leading to an exciting detective story set against the backdrop of future Prague.

Restore Point is complemented by The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1961), one of the first Czech sci-fi movies by a pioneer of film tricks and animation Karel Zeman. Based on the famous book by Gottfried August Bürger, this film features Zeman's unmistakable poetic style and follows the incredible adventures of the boastful Baron. It stars the best Czech actors of the 1960s and received numerous awards at international film festivals.

Another film is the family drama Dry Season (2024) by leading Czech director Bohdan Sláma. It follows the lives of two neighboring clans in a Czech village. Both are controlled by dominant fathers: Josef forces his family to live an alternative lifestyle, while Viktor leads a large agricultural enterprise, viewing the land merely as a tool for profit regardless of ecological impact and sustainability. However, love between their children forces both to reevaluate their approaches to life.

Larks on a String (1969), directed by Oscar-winning Jiří Menzel in collaboration with writer Bohumil Hrabal, takes place in the Kladno steelworks, where the communist regime sent politically inconvenient dissenters—rebellious intellectuals, believers of various religions, and small business owners—to forced labour. After the invasion of Soviet forces in 1968 there was no place in the Czech cinema for the theme of political persecution of the 1950s. The film was banned shortly after its creation and only premiered in 1990, the same year it received the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. 

The atmosphere of the period before the 1968 invasion is captured in the film Cosy Dens (1999). This family retro-comedy with a bittersweet tone tells of two ideologically opposed families living in the same house, unwittingly sharing all the good and bad. The film is set in the Prague suburb of Hanspaulka and is characterized by delicate poetic style and humoristic exaggeration, depicting the parallel lives of three generations of men and women during a particular period of Czech history. It became one of the most successful and beloved Czech films of the 1990s.

The list concludes with a family film about the power of friendship and imagination, Tony, Shelly and the Magic Light (2023). This animated movie tells the story of eleven-year-old Tony, who has a unique trait—he has been shining since birth. His perhaps overly caring parents try to keep him at home to protect him from the outside world. Everything changes when, just before Christmas, Shelly, a mysterious girl, moves into the neighboring apartment, turning Tonda's world upside down.