By a Sharp Knife

Pardon

The story of a soldier’s parents told from the perspective of their 17-year-old grandson, Janek

The Auschwitz Report

This is the true story of Freddy and Walter – two young Slovak Jews, who were deported to Auschwitz in 1942. On 10 April 1944, after meticulous planning and with the help and the resilience of their inmates, they manage to escape. While the inmates they had left behind courageously stand their ground against the Nazi officers, the two men are driven on by the hope that their evidence could save lives. Emaciated and hurt, they make their way through the mountains back to Slovakia. With the ...

I, Olga Hepnarova

Olga is a complex young woman desperate to break free from her unfeeling family and social conventions. With her Louise Brooks-like tomboyish looks she drags herself, chain-smoking, from one job to another until she appears to find her niche as a truck driver. Although she has female lovers she does not form a bond with any of them; instead she clashes, time and again, venting herself in wordless emotional outbursts and other behavioural extremes.

Servants

Set during the period of normalisation in Czechoslovakia, in 1980 two friends apply to study at a Roman Catholic seminary in order to escape the moral devastation of society in the communist regime. They soon discover that the seminary is controlled by Pacem in Terris, an organisation of clerics willingly collaborating with the regime.

Charlatan

Born in the early 20th century, herbalist Jan Mikolasek became rich and famous after curing countless diseases with unorthodox means. A true emblem of Czechoslovakia before World War II, the healer became even more appreciated during the Nazi occupation and the communist regime. Each regime appreciates his skill and protects him. But how much will it cost him to maintain his status in a new political change?