Cinequest

Shades of Fern

Based on the only extensive prose work by the surrealist painter Josef Capek, Shades of Fern most resembles the philosophical fairy tales and fables of Josef’s older brother, the legendary Czech novelist and playwright Karel Capek. Two young poachers, more boys than men, kill a gamekeeper when they are caught illegally hunting. Panicked, they retreat into a forest that grows steadily more forbidding and deadly as their fear for the future—and guilt over their action—mounts. Loosely based on hundreds of oral folk tales and legends that haunt ...

O třech vandrovnících

Slasti Otce vlasti

The young Prince Charles (Jaromír Hanzlík), the future King of his country Charles IV, is being educated at the French court in the company of his fiancée Blanche (Daniela Kolárová). One day he receives a summons from his father John of Luxembourg (Milos Kopecký) in Italy. He leaves for Italy accompanied by a deputation from Bohemia. On the way the prince's company fights a battle with armed Milanese against heavy odds. Thanks to Charles's perspicacity, the prince's almost naked soldiers win through. In Lucca in Italy Charles joins his fathe...

Vertigo

Psychological study of country girl Jitka and her blossoming love for an older man afraid of her youth and spontaneity.

Anna the Proletarian

The movie describes proletarian life in the Czech Lands after World War I.

Král Ubu

Xantipa

The Harder They Fall

A Czech TV film adaptation of Budd Schulberg's novel The Harder They Fall, which had previously been made as the 1956 US movie of the same name starring Humphrey Bogart and Rod Steiger.

Crime at the Girls School

Three short story omnibus. The main hero and connecting link is Lieutenant Boruvka, created by Lubomír Lipsky. He deals with the murder case between climbers, the death of the dancer in the music theater and the strange disappearance of the mathematics professor.

Svět otevřený náhodám

The Key

Jan Zika is the legendary hero of the communist resistance movement during World War II and leading functionary of the second underground Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.

O statečném Petrovi

The Wishing Machine

Two young boys, play hooky from school in order to explore an ultramodern world's fair. They take in the many marvelous scientific and industrial exhibits, obtain literature, eat food, and generally run amok.

The Medal

The trenches of World War I provide for a captivating backdrop to the drama of Corporal Hoferik. In his devotion to the Habsburg Monarchy, he fanatically carries out his military orders, but he ultimately suffers the Empire's disfavor.

Movies by Oldřich Velen