Movies: Otakar Vávra

In the 1600s, an overzealous clergy hauls innocent women in front of tribunals, forces them to confess to imaginary witchery, and engages in brutal torture and persecution of their subjects....

In early 20th century Czechoslovakia, a gravely ill chemist recalls his discovery of a powerful explosive and how it landed in the hands of anarchists....

On 20th of April 1945 the Soviet army launches its attack on Berlin. The end has come for Nazi Germany and Hitler decides to commit suicide. In Prague K.H. Frank (Nazi Secretary of State and Chief of police in the Protectorate of Bohemia a Moravia) d...

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A remake of Vávra's 1948 atomic age thriller Krakatit....

The plot begins in the Soviet Union showing first efforts to establish the Czechoslovak legion in 1942. The film also shows the assassination of Heydrich and the subsequent annihilation of Lidice. The main topis of the film is battles with German tro...

The second part of the revolutionary Hussite trilogy takes place in the years 1419-1420....

Shown in Cannes 1946....

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Year of the Revolution 1848...

This feature film based on the events of 1938 is a chronicle of the futile efforts of the Czechoslovak president Edvard Benes (Jirí Pleskot), politicians and ordinary citizens, to save the independence and the territorial integrity of the state from ...

A 13-minute documentary film depicting life in Prague....

The film is essentially a feature-length commercial for an exhibition to mark the 40th anniversary of the nationalisation of the Czechoslovak film industry, to be held at the Prague U Hybernu venue. The protagonists of the piece are comedians Oldrich...

Saxony, devastated by the Thirty Years' War, is led by the comedy troupe of the principal Fortunato. The student Vavrinec has fled Bohemia and greatly values the text of Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet, which he has acquired on his wanderings ...

An epic exploration of the Czechoslovak New Wave cinema of the 1960s and 70s, structured around a series of conversations with one of its most acclaimed exponents - Closely Observed Trains director Jiří Menzel....

A lyrical story about first love, death and disappointment, based on a poem of the same title....

The doomed love of a city girl caught in the vise of poverty is detailed in Vavra’s fluid, romantic work, one of the most elegant creations of the Czech Modernist era... The film lingers over its characters’ habitats and haunts, finding psychological...

Jan Hus is a 1954 Czechoslovak film directed by Otakar Vávra. It is the first part of the "Hussite Revolutionary Trilogy", one of the most famous works of the Czechoslovak director, completed with Jan Žižka (1955) and Proti všem (Against All Odds, 19...

A story of love and honor that takes place during the mid-nineteenth century during revolutions, as well as economic, political, and social hypocrisy. Two extraordinary but lonely artists share a passionate love, as evidenced by the preserved letter...

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