Czech film festival returns to Little Rock in mid April

“Czech That Film” Festival will be returning to Little Rock’s Riverdale 10 Cinema for a second consecutive year on April 15 and 16.

The event will present five culturally significant films for the Czech Republic, including Home Care, one of 10 picks for the Best Foreign Language Oscar from the popular industry trade Variety. Slávek Horák, the film’s director, will take part in a Q&A session after the screening.

The Honorary Consulate of the Czech Republic in Little Rock is collaborating with the Arkansas Film Commission, the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, the Little Rock Film Festival, Milk & Honey Films, Prague Studios, and The Pantry Restaurant on the event.

Lenka Horakova, Honorary Consul of the Czech Republic in Arkansas and AEDC’s business development director for Europe, said that the films presented “not only give a peek into Czech culture, but they are fine works of art in their own rights, beautifully directed with well-written scripts.”

The films will be presented free-of-charge, but reservations are required through Eventbrite.

The Czech Film Festival began in 2012 in New York City and expanded to other U.S. cities. Films are chosen on the basis of introducing viewers to Czech culture, “bringing people together, and presenting inspired entertainment,” the AEDC explained in a statement.

Little Rock will join 19 major U.S. and Canadian cities in screenings of the five selected films. Home Care kicks off the festivities on opening night, starting at 7 p.m. The rest of the schedule, along with plot synopses for each film, is listed below.

THE FILMS
“Home Care,” Friday, April 15, 7 p.m.
(Domácí péče, 2015, 92 min.)
Director: Slávek Horák
Dedicated home care nurse Vlasta attends her whimsical patients in her Southern Moravia country region. But when she learns that she is ill and needs help herself, she has to reach for it outside of her comfort zone. Thanks to the daughter of one of her patients and her esoteric mentor, she starts to discover the realm of alternative healing. And thanks to it, she also starts to discover herself, hopefully. All this is frowned upon by her husband, Lada, who doesn’t believe in “all this nonsense” one bit. Thus, Vlasta has to fight both her illness and her husband’s “common sense.” Drama and comedy intertwine as Vlasta realizes – for the first time in her life – that she needs care too.
Focusing strongly on authenticity of story and performances, “Home care” blends and contrasts comedy and tragedy into the emotional journey of a middle-aged woman’s self-discovery.

“The Little Man,” Saturday, April 16, noon
(Malý pán, 2014, 84 min.)
Director: Radek Beran
The Little Man is a kind-hearted bloke who likes to help everyone and is never taken by surprise. Ever since that night when he had a strange dream in which he saw a cottage out of a fairy tale with a sign over the door that said: “Here shall you find that which you lack,” the Little Man has been restless. Nothing raised his spirits. So he decides to get to the root of this mystery. And that is where the adventurous incidents begin. Adventurous because the road to such a mystery is long and hard, especially if you have a bewildered wise Blockhead as a helper. So we encounter various forest creatures with the Little Man, some kind, some malicious, and together we come to the very end, where we find the magical Tree of Answers, thanks to which we discover what the Little Man has been searching for all this time and thus we all will able to sleep easier.

“Fifty,” Saturday, April 16, 1:45 p.m.
(Padesátka, 2015, 97 min.)
Director: Vojtěch Kotek
Set in the beautiful snowy Krkonoąe Mountians, the film centers aroung the Three Kings 50 km Cross- Country Ski Race. The story of many characters whose stories intertwine reveals a secret of one mountain family. The cast of characters includes a one-legged female skier, a snowmobile driver who doesn’t drink on the Three Kings Holiday, an infertile ladies‘ man, and a barman who delights in fortune telling. Meanwhile, Pavka is the oldest member of the traditional cross-country skiing Bulán family. His son Jura worries him. Instead of the skiing race, he is interested in a totally different 50 – seducing mature women. In a world of mountain lodges, an avalanche of events and memories ensues. Delve into this directorial debut filled with origianl music and comedy.

“Ganster Ka,” Saturday, April 16, 3 p.m.
(Ganster Ka, 2014, 100 min.)
Director: Jan Pachl
A film based on a story by Jaroslav Kmenta, the author of the book “Padrino Krejčíř.” It tells the story of a Mafioso who got rich by tax fraud of billions of crowns in transactions with petroleum products and who later tried to gain control of the state-owned petroleum concern. The main character is the gangster Radim Kraviec, nicknamed Káčko. He was always capable of violence, but when his father is abducted and killed by a competing mafia, he is changed into a murdering monster.

“Schmitke,” Saturday, April 16, 5 p.m.
(Schmitke, 2014, 94 min.)
Director: ©těpán Altrichter
Julius Schmitke is an elderly engineer whose lonely life consists mainly of unexciting work, a chatty young colleague, and the occasional strange allure of the forest. When he is assigned to repair an old turbine, which he had designed and which inexplicably keeps breaking down, he is not exactly excited about his trip to the Czech side of the Ore Mountains. The weird area full of deep forests, decayed mines and equally weird people does not fill him with trust, but when his colleague mysteriously disappears overnight, even Schmitke must head into the trees cloaked in fog. Featuring intertwining comedy exaggeration and mysterious atmosphere, the film was created as a Czech-German co-production.