Summer on the Roof Come and enjoy Czech films and Manhattan views on the rooftop of the Bohemian National Hall. Films are screened at dusk every Thursday until October 1st. In case of bad weather films will be screened at 8:30 pm in the cinema on the first floor of the Bohemian National Hall.

SUMMER ON THE ROOF

May 14

Rozmarné léto (Capricious Summer), 1967

Director: Jiři Menzel

Based on a novel by Jan Libora. The plot focuses on three middle-aged vacationers at a summer resort. The tourists’ plans for rest and relaxation are messed up when a circus tightrope walker and his toothsome daughter arrive on the scene.

MAY 21

Jedné noci v jednom městě (One Night in the City), 2007

Director: Jan Balej

One Night in the City – which took top prize at the Czech Republic’s Anifest in 2006 – is a rare treat not only for animation buffs but for anyone who discerns the shimmer and glimmer of the dark side.

May 28

Obecná škola (The Elementary School), 1991

Director: Jan Svěrák

The time is 1945–46. 10 year old Eda and his friend Tonda live in a small village outside Prague. In school, their class is so wild and undisciplined that their teacher quits and is replaced by the militant Igor Hnidzo. He is very strict – but also very just. His weakness is his interest in young women. Nominated for an Oscar in 1992.

June 4

Báječná léta pod psa (The wonderful years of lousy living), 1997

Director: Petr Nikolaev

The story of an ordinary family living in Czechoslovakia from around 1963 until the Velvet Revolution. Based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Michal Wiewegh.

June 11

Gympl (The Can), 2007

Director: Tomaš Vorel

The director’s son, Tomaš Vorel jr., stars as Petr Kocourek, a troubled student with a single mother who bides his time spray-painting graffiti around the city of Prague. When he chooses to attend school, he’s joined by friends along with other classmates. There’s a sharp divide between the kids and their teachers and parents; neither generation understands the other, or wants to.

June 18

Odhalení (Revealed), 2005

Director: Petra Slavika a Radomira Šofra.

In the years 2005 and 2006 we prepared an unusual reality show for public service radio, Czech Radio. We started calling it The Revealed. It was a reaction to an incredible boom of container reality shows such as Big Brother. In this “slightly different reality show” of Czech Radio, we had participants locked up in a “villa” as well. They were a group for Western Lowland Gorillas living in the pavilion of the Prague Zoo. The aim of the project was not only to look at the modern television format from the outside, but also to show the similarities and differences between the behaviour of gorillas and the behaviour of people. The next goal was to bring forward relevant information about apes and to support their protection. Unexpectedly, we also obtained some very valuable material for further scientific research. Later on, The Revealed won many awards including a “Wild Oscar” for a double DVD called The

Revealed at the prestigious Wildscreen Awards in Bristol.

June 25

Šakalí léta (Big Beat), 1993

Director: Jan Hřebejk

This rock & roll musical drama from the Czech Republic is set in 1959 and chronicles the rebellious youth of Baby, a guitar-playing rocker wannabe from a working-class neighborhood in Prague. The adults of the neighborhood are appalled and worried for their children because in 1950s Czechoslovakia, outward rebellion is a crime. Still the young carry on, and music and mayhem ensue.

July 2

Příběhy obyčejného šílenství (Tales of Common Insanity), 2005

Director: Petr Zelenka

Adapted from Zelenka’s own play. Petr Hanek (Trojan), 33, has lost his job and his girlfriend. His attempts to win her back are complicated by the increasingly bizarre situations he finds himself in. Petr’s eccentric mother, meanwhile, attempts to snap Petr’s father out of his emotional detachment, with unexpected results.

July 9

Světáci (Men About Town), 1969

Director: Zdeněk Podskalsky

A top example of Czech comedy of the sixties and one of the all time best ones in the history of Czech cinema. Three facade-makers from the country work in Prague. They are relatively well paid and want to once in life experience the glamorous world of expensive cafes and sophisticated ladies. They hire a gentleman from the old school to teach them good behavior. The film reaches it’s peak, when the three workers meet the three women, all of them pretending to be artists, scientists or businessmen.

July 16

Akumulátor, 1994

Director: Jan Svěrak

In this movie, TV sets are full of life. The TV character double needs energy from the true character to survive. Each time a real human watches TV, his “double” will pull life energy from him. So there’s a mysterious death-serial. Many people die in front of their TV sets and nobody knows why.

July 23

Amerika, 1994

Director: Vladimir Michalek

This Czech drama is the first film version of Kafka’s unfinished novel. The film has a theatrical feel as it follows protagonist Karel Rosmann from Europe to America where he stays with his Uncle Jacob, an industrialist.

July 30

Cesta z města (Out of the City), 2000

Director: Tomaš Vorel

Cesta z města opens with Tomaš Hanak playing the lead role of Honza. As a hardworking software programmer, Honza’s life consists of a familiar hectic schedule complicated by ringing phones and traffic jams. A phone call from Honza’s son, Honzik, interrupts his activities, and

soon the two, along with the family dog Bingo, find themselves driving away for the weekend, with the consent of both Honza’s ex-wife and his boss.

August 6

Nuda v brně (Boredom in Brno), 2003

Director: Vladimir Moravek

This busy, rather cutesy ensemble comedy revolves around the lengthy preparations by Olinka and twitchy Standa to consummate their relationship – a goal most notably thwarted by Olinka’s overbearing mother.

August 13

Mazaný Filip (Smart philip), 2003

Director:Vaclav Marhoul

As broad as the movie gets, it keeps a canny grip on the mix of stoic morality and sardonic world-weariness that made Marlowe the greatest of the hard-boiled gumshoe heroes. A parody it may be, but one with real affection for, and even fealty to, its source.

August 20

A bude hůř (It s Gonna Get Worse), 2007

Diretor: Petr Nikolaev

Czechoslovakia at the end of the seventies. In order to avoid military service, Olin manages to get himself sent to a psychiatric clinic. Now he’s returning to his friends in the north. All of them are outsiders who have nothing but contempt for the communist regime. Their rebellion,

however, is no political action, it is just raw refusal, constantly bringing them into confrontation with the authority of the state.

August 27

September 3

Ene Bene, 2000

Director: Alice Nellis

Set in a small Bohemian town in the middle of local election “fever,” the film concentrates on two married retired school teachers, trying to cope with the recent stroke of the husband. The return of their clearly troubled daughter from her studies in Prague further strains the already

fragile family.

September 10

Hezké chvilky bez  záruky (Pleasant Moments), 2006

Director: Věra Chytilova

Hana is a psychologist and a thoroughly independent woman. Her unemployed husband, jealous of his wife, finds a younger girlfriend, but their teenage son Honzik is frustrated; everyone ignores him. Hana’s patient Eva, an attractive middle-aged woman, is having

problems with her 25-year-old son; she is in love with her son’s friend and her son is offended by her behavior.

September 17

Knoflíkáři (Buttoners), 1998

Director: Petr Zelenka

This Czech anthology film has six episodes linked by a radio show and a common theme of chance, coincidence, and fate – opening in 1945 Japan with “Kokura Lucky” and followed by episodes taking place in the present-day Prague.

September 24

Skřítek (Elf), 2005

Director: Tomaš Vorel

A family of villagers moves up in the world – to the county seat. Dad works as a butcher at a meatpacking plant, mom is a checker at a supermarket. The daughter is at odds with her homeroom teacher, while the son – a vegetarian, anarchist, and avid pothead – is apprenticing at the butcher shop to please his father. The kid’s in hot water with both

his forewoman and the police. But dad isn’t much of an example, letting himself be tempted by the charms of a lovely young butcher. However much mom tries – visiting the beauty parlor, her psychologist, or even the confessional – her husband shows his interest by moving out. Mom plots revenge and somehow an imp gets mixed up in it all...

October 1

Indiánské léto (Indian Summer), 1995

Director: Saša Gedeon

The rivalry between two teen-age cousins provides the framework for this sprightly Czech drama that is based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story Bernice Bobs Her Hair. The tale is set in a Czech village where two adolescent girls are staying with their grandmother. They spend their summer nights at outdoor summer dances and their days engaged in interesting

activities. Maria is the worldly, confident one and she often teases the naive, more restrained Klara. Both of them want a boyfriend. One day...