
Jan Němec
Director · 1936 – 2016 · Prague, Czechoslovakia
Jan Němec (12 July 1936 – 18 March 2016) was a Czech filmmaker whose most important work dates from the 1960s. Film historian Peter Hames has described him as the "enfant terrible of the Czech New Wave."
Movies18
Movie6.8DramaRomanceSuccessful surgeon Tomas leaves Prague for an operation, meets a young photographer named Tereza, and brings her back with him. Tereza is surprised to learn that Tomas is already having an affair with the bohemian Sabina, but when the Soviet invasion occurs, all three flee to Switzerland. Sabina begins an affair, Tom continues womanizing, and Tereza, disgusted, returns to Czechoslovakia. Realizing his mistake, Tomas decides to chase after her.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
1988 · 539 votes
Movie2.8HistoryComedyThe film tells the life story of its director, Jan Nemec, one of the most known and important filmmakers of Czech New Wave.
- MovieDocumentary
Documentary about the film academy in Prague and the Czech Film in 1965.
Movie5.8ComedyFantasyA lonely woman gets more than she bargained for when she begins wooing Mr Devil, an insatiable glutton who turns out to be the boyfriend from Hell.
Movie4.0DramaA Hungarian immigrant adjusts to life in California, as his sons venture off into their own adult lives, which often clash with his old world ideas.
'68
1988 · 8 votes
Movie8.0DocumentaryEster Krumbachová - a costume designer, screenwriter, director; one of the boldest personalities of the Czech New Wave. She worked in theatre, she was a writer and an illustrator. She co-created films such as O slavnosti a hostech (1966), Sedmikrásky (1966), Vsichni dobrí rodáci (1969), Pension pro svobodné pány (1968), Valerie a týden divu (1970), Slamený klobouk (1972) and many others. In the 1960s, she was a 'pivot' of the art scene in Prague, attracting artists who were on the threshold of their career, just setting out to find their own form of self-realization. Those who underwent her tutelage remember her forever. Director Vera Chytilová talks to those who knew Ester Krumbachová, who worked with her, befriended her, loved her. She sets off on a search that is to end by answering the question: Who was Ester?
Movie4.5DramaThe subject of this film, which takes an analytical look at the life of all of us with an analytical eye, is the evil microbe that has slowly infiltrated the organism of the Czech nation. Through the intertwining fates of three couples, it evokes domestic life before November 1989, burdened by a suffocating atmosphere of unfreedom, and after November, when relatively nothing has changed because people have not changed. The bleak conclusion suggests that the plague epidemic is still ongoing.
Corpus delicti
1991 · 4 votes
Movie4.1HorrorComedyIn 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 rumbustious woman with an obstinate and stubborn mind. They both try to kill each other, but the queen is thrown into the dungeons.
Movie8.0DocumentaryTaking a cue from Franz Kafka's "Letter to My Father," this highly personal film follows Czech director Jan Nemec as he attempts to engage in a dialogue with his deceased mother. While alive, Nemec's mother had a troubled relationship with her son; this rumination seems to be Nemec's public platform for coming to terms with unresolved familial issues. The director embellishes his film by linking personal events with 20th century history.
Movie6.0DocumentaryIt's nighttime in Prague, 21 August 1968. Soviet troops and tanks are occupying the city - random attacks, soldiers shooting, bodies lying dead on the sidewalk. With an impromptu crew, the director (Karel Roden) captures some unique evidence - material which is, however, worthless in occupied Prague; it has to be shown to the rest of the world. So, while the Soviets are concocting false reports of heartfelt receptions without military resistance for propaganda purposes, the director sets off on a risky trip across the closed Czech-Austrian border to Vienna.
Movie6.9DocumentaryA unique document of the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, what began as a documentary about the liberalization of Czechoslovakia evolved into a record of the entry of Russian tanks into Prague.
Oratorio for Prague
1968 · 12 votes
- MovieComedyMusic
Horí
1982
- Movie8.0Documentary
A labyrinthine portrait of Czech culture on the brink of a new millennium. Egon Bondy prophesies a capitalist inferno, Jim Čert admits to collaborating with the secret police, Jaroslav Foglar can’t find a bottle-opener, and Ivan Diviš makes observations about his own funeral. This is the Czech Republic in the late 90s, as detailed in Karel Vachek’s documentary.
Bohemia docta aneb Labyrint světa a lusthauz srdce (Božská komedie)
Bohemia Docta or the Labyrinth of the World and the Lust-House of the Heart (A Divine Comedy)
2000 · 1 votes
Movie8.0DocumentaryThe unique and enigmatic journey of the writer Milan Kundera: from communist Czechoslovakia to exile in Paris, from his quest for glory to his withdrawal from the media scene.
Milan Kundera : odyssée des illusions trahies
Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Weight of History
2023 · 1 votes
- Movie6.3Drama
Two stories from the lives of border guards. In the story "The Pursuit", an experienced border guard and his young and inexperienced colleague follow the tracks of ski boots in a snowstorm. The second story, Wandering, is about a frontiersman whose wife wants to go inland with their child.
Movie8.0MusicA musical portrait of the legendary Marta Kubišová, filmed just before the August 1968 invasion restricted her artistic activities.
- Movie6.0DramaHistory
Story of a man who, at the end of the 1940s, attempted to cross the Czechoslovak border illegally like many others to escape the communist regime and became a victim of the historically documented game of the security forces of the totalitarian regime, the so-called Kameny action. The project of the Miroslav Ondříček Film Academy in Písek is the debut of screenwriter and director Martin Kopp.
Hranice
2006 · 1 votes
Movie7.0DramaJan 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 and drawings often erotic in nature. She co-founded the surrealist movement in her native Prague, survived the Nazis and the Communists, maintained artistic and personal relationships with artists Jindrich Heisler (whom she hid during WWII) and Jindrich Styrsky.
Toyen
2005 · 2 votes
Series1
- TVDocumentary
Television series Golden Sixties examines new insights into Czech and Slovak cinema of the 1960s and the role of the Czechoslovak New Wave. Each episode focuses on a different filmmaker.