Program - Feature Films

Feature Films

The Ape Star

Linda Hambäck | Sweden, Norway, Denmark | 2021 | 76 min | EN

This sweet family film with an original story, co-produced by three Scandinavian countries, is based on a book by Frida Nilsson.

An 8-year-old girl named Jonna lives in an orphanage and dreams of being adopted one day. What will her new mommy be like? Much to the girl’s surprise (and, initially, horror), she is adopted by a gorilla. The girl gets into the gorilla’s car and together they drive to their new home. Jonna has to get used to the unexpected situation, but it doesn’t take long and she and the talking gorilla become close. Their life, full of exciting moments and inspirational experiences, is, however, threatened by a local businessman who has set his sights on the gorilla’s land. A beautiful story about love, friendship and the fact that things may be different than they seem.

‘Frida Nilsson’s novel was recommended by a friend, and I fell in love with the story immediately! I just thought it had such a potential, especially through animation, where we are free to colour and adapt the world to something new. This film took three years to make, together with a dream team from Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Working with animation is like creating a big moving collage, where the artwork, animation, music and voices slowly become moving picture images,’ the director says about her film.

Tue 10/5/2022
10.00-11.16
free seats: 23
Cinema City 1 - Czech TV Hall

Wed 11/5/2022
10.00-11.16
free seats: 194
Cinema City 1 - Czech TV Hall

Sat 14/5/2022
10.30-11.46
free seats: 84
Cinema City 1 - Czech TV Hall

Flee

Jonas Poher Rasmussen | Denmark, France, Sweden, Norway | 2021 | 93 min | DA

This award-winning suggestive and meaningful feature ani-doc uses a specific story to reflect the theme of refugees. This theme is now even more topical for Europeans than it was when the film successfully premiered in cinemas.
The director explores the story of an acclaimed 36-year-old academic struggling with a painful secret he’s been keeping for 20 years. Amin has kept this secret for fear of ruining the life he built for himself and his groom-to-be, so he decided not to tell anyone the truth about his escape from Afghanistan. In the end, he shared his story with director Jonas Poher Rasmussen, a close friend and high school classmate. Thanks to the director’s sensitive approach and their heartfelt dialogue, Amin was able for the first time to look squarely at his terrifying past and take the viewers with him. Using animation, the film tells the story of a child refugee’s extraordinary journey.
Flee is not only a ruthless insight into the world of refugees (how the escape happens, how human smugglers operate, what happens inside a smuggling container hidden in a ship’s hold), it’s also an unforgettable story of getting to know one’s true self. It turns out that only when confronting the past can one sculpt the future and that the universal truth applies that only after we stop running from who we truly are, do we find the real meaning of home.

Tue 10/5/2022
16.30-18.03
free seats: 163
Kino Varšava

Fri 13/5/2022
21.00-22.33
free seats: 63
Malé Theatre

The Crossing

Florence Miailhe | France, Germany, Czech Republic | 2021 | 80 min | FR

Not many animators use paint-on-glass animation. This method is extremely challenging in preparation and the execution itself. The animators use multiple planes (multiple layers of glass) at once. For their patience, they are rewarded by a uniquely charming visual magic which can’t be achieved by any other method.

The Crossing is the very first feature film made using this technique. In six chapters, its director tells the story of a girl named Kyona and her brother Adriel, who are fleeing their hometown of Novi Varna because of a pogrom during which their parents were arrested. Without any money and with no help in sight, they quickly find themselves among the children of the streets and various thieves only to be placed in a spartan family for re-education. The siblings escape again and their journey takes them to a deep forest, a circus and a mountain camp. Kyona slowly realises that to live a free life, they will have to pay a high price.

The authors skilfully painted the atmosphere of the film full of impressive images, scenes and particularly, emotions.

Director Florence Miailhe has been focusing on the technique of paint-on-glass animation for a long time and her filmography includes several acclaimed short films made using this technique. In her feature debut, she has joined forces with other animators, including a team working in the Czech Republic (Lucie Sunková, Polina Kazak, Eva Skurská, Anna Paděrová, Zuzana Studená and Marta Szymanska).

Wed 11/5/2022
14.00-15.20
free seats: 183
Cinema City 1 - Czech TV Hall

Fri 13/5/2022
19.00-20.20
free seats: 76
Cinema City 1 - Czech TV Hall

My Sunny Maad

Michaela Pavlátová | France, Czech Republic, Slovakia | 2021 | 85 min | X_DAR

The film, which has won many awards including the Jury Award at Annecy, is based on the riveting book Frišta by Czech journalist Petra Procházková.

A girl abandons her life in Prague to marry her beloved classmate Nazir in Kabul. In Afghanistan, Herra (originally Helena) must now find her place in an entirely different culture with other family customs and a society denying women their rights. Especially when the things she expected and anticipated don’t arrive. But what she didn’t expect, and what brings light into the joyless situation, is the arrival of a sensitive boy named Maad from the distant mountains. The tension in the family grows, however, and even the respectful Nazir finds it unexpectedly difficult to have a European wife. Not even the family’s progressive grandfather can change the fate that awaits the family.

The director has excellently balanced the film’s serious theme by keeping a detached perspective. The film provides an almost documentary insight into everyday Afghan life. It reflects the situation of discriminated women, who have no chance to decide their own fate, let alone the fate of their children.

At the same time, the characters in My Sunny Maad are portrayed with simple and distinct drawing and the film uses a pleasantly stylised yet sufficiently realistic background.

Wed 11/5/2022
16.30-17.55
free seats: 166
Cinema City 1 - Czech TV Hall

Thu 12/5/2022
21.00-22.25
Náměstí Dr. E. Beneše

Sat 14/5/2022
14.30-15.55
free seats: 76
Cinema City 1 - Czech TV Hall

Yaya e Lennie – The Walking Liberty

Alessandro Rak | Italy | 2021 | 98 min | IT

Naples, the future. An impenetrable jungle has consumed the very last remains of civilisation. Dilapidated houses are held together by ubiquitous lianas, heavy racemes of exotic flowers dangle in the green gloom, palm fronds shield all free people from the sun. A unique and very unlikely duo wanders through this post-apocalyptic world – fifteen-year-old cheeky, gutsy Yaya and her close friend Lennie, a bulky, thirty-year-old man inspired by Lennie Small from the book Of Mice and Men. Their life is simple, although definitely not easy. The jungle may feed them, but Yaya knows that the only place they will be safe is the Land of Music. It is an imaginary land she tells Lennie about constantly. She gives both of them hope to be free forever – two pure souls in the womb of nature, unburdened by human order and universally challenged civilisation. It seems, however, that they cannot escape its reach. In the depths of the jungle, a new human society is being born. This new order, called the Institution, strives to achieve its meritorious goal and reinstate the reliable ‘system’.
In this film, Alessandro Rak returns to his favourite motifs of corrupted society, problems of well-intended but rigid systems, democracy, freedom and responsibility. After his previous film Cinderella the Cat, he introduces a dystopic fairy-tale for grownups with mesmerising, unrestrained characters and dynamic animation, sound and music.

Wed 11/5/2022
20.30-22.08
free seats: 178
Cinema City 1 - Czech TV Hall

Fri 13/5/2022
15.30-17.08
free seats: 160
Cinema City 1 - Czech TV Hall

Belle

Mamoru Hosoda | Japan | 2021 | 122 min | JA

Enter a world where you can be yourself. No limits, no compromises. Be the one you want to be, even though in the real world of a small Japanese village, home of the film’s main heroine, you wouldn’t dare…
The inconspicuous Suza has suffered a terrible tragedy. Not only has she lost her mother, but because she’s unable to cope with this loss, she’s been drifting apart from her dad and choosing to escape into the virtual world of a social platform called U. This escape from reality, however, means an unexpected success for her. Thanks to her alter ego, a singer called Belle, she’s able to find her voice and use her lyrics to express emotions she can’t handle in the real world. People quickly notice the sincerity of her songs and Belle suddenly becomes a hugely popular diva, moving crowds. But even virtual reality has its bad guys. And the baddest of them all seems to be the mysterious Beast, the loved and hated protagonist of riveting fights organised in the alternative world of U. Belle and the Beast meet and the virtual space becomes a place of struggle to save real human souls.
Director Mamoru Hosoda, whose film Mirai charmed juries and audiences at Anifilm 2019, uses a superbly executed combination of 2D and 3D animation to present a classical theme put in the current context of modern technology. He can see the potential of social media with faith in the human spirit and the conviction that technology can represent a platform, instead of taking control of us.

Thu 12/5/2022
10.00-12.02
free seats: 144
Cinema City 1 - Czech TV Hall

Sun 15/5/2022
10.30-12.32
free seats: 16
Cinema City 4

My Neighbors’ Neighbors

Anne-Laure Daffis, Léo Marchand | France | 2021 | 92 min | FR

An older French house becomes the main setting of crazy tangled stories of neighbours and those who became their neighbours by accident. The inhabitants seem to be dealing with the hazards of life: an ogre breaks his teeth on the very same day of the annual Ogre Feast, while being asked to watch over his neighbour’s kids; a magician cuts his assistant in half and her legs run off; a hiker and his dog spend several days stuck in the elevator; an old man falls in love with a pair of legs.

This imaginative film uses elegant lexical and visual humour. Its peculiar and uncharacteristic poetics are built around a wide variety of animation techniques ranging from classic (such as 2D and 3D computer animation) to live-action footage and even pinscreen. Through layers of humorous situations, we sometimes catch glimpses of nostalgia for a lost world as well as irony and a light ridicule of contemporary France. The dramas, delights, surprises and dangers of real life are mixed with magic as if it was meant to be.

Thu 12/5/2022
15.00-16.32
free seats: 131
Cinema City 1 - Czech TV Hall

Sat 14/5/2022
18.00-19.32
free seats: 135
Cinema City 1 - Czech TV Hall

The Girl from the Other Side

Satomi Maiya, Yutaro Kubo | Japan | 2021 | 70 min | JA

WIT Studio introduces the anticipated feature film follow-up to its short film from 2019. This adaptation of a manga of the same name by Japanese artist Nagabe was partially crowdfunded by a Kickstarter campaign.

Once upon a time, in a land far away that was divided into two realms… The Outside was roamed by teratomorphic creatures who had the power to curse whomever they touched. Humans could only live safely in the Inside. But when a lost little girl from the Inside named Shiva, and a demonic beastly looking Outsider, simply known as Teacher, initiate a quiet coexistence on the same side of the forest, their bond seems to transcend their incompatible natures. It is the beginning of a folktale about two outcasts – one human, one inhuman – who linger in the hazy twilight that separates night from day.

This mystical film is a dark and peculiar fairy-tale which will leave a strong impression on viewers, further emphasised by a delicately executed artistic style balancing the grim content. The film’s characters deal with intense emotions which they show with matching expressivity.

Thu 12/5/2022
17.30-18.40
free seats: 74
Cinema City 1 - Czech TV Hall

Sat 14/5/2022
18.30-19.40
free seats: 1
Kino Varšava

Dozens of Norths

Koji Yamamura | France, Japan | 2021 | 65 min | JA

‘North is solitary everywhere. Here, all is North. This is a record of the people I met in the North. However, my memory is fragmented and does not get the point at all. Now I’m starting to wonder my efforts have come to nothing. I’m just getting the occasional recognition of the existence of the world through the dull perception that changes shape little by little,‘ Koji Yamamura, a legend in world animation, says this about his latest film. For the first time in his career, Yamamura didn’t opt to make a short film, but instead used his demanding, visually and artistically fascinating style in a feature film. He managed to tackle this uneasy task without compromising his approach. The fragility of his animated drawings perfectly reflects the ideas the film explores. In addition to visually mesmerising images, Yamamura also uses captions to outline his themes. Otherwise, his filmic poem with music by Willem Breuker has no dialogue. The film uses Yamamura’s drawings and texts created in response to the catastrophic earthquake that decimated Japan in 2011. Despite the film’s nostalgic atmosphere with elements of a magical nightmare, Dozens of Norths also includes Yamamura’s delicate humour.

Thu 12/5/2022
20.30-21.35
free seats: 106
Kino Varšava

Fri 13/5/2022
20.30-21.35
free seats: 25
North Bohemian Museum

Sun 15/5/2022
15.00-16.05
free seats: 150
Kino Varšava

Best Birthday Ever

Michael Ekblad | Germany, Netherlands, Sweden | 2021 | 75 min | EN

The little rabbit Charlie will soon turn five. Understandably, he’s very excited. Like every kid, he knows very well that one’s birthday is the best day of the year. But this birthday will be slightly different for Charlie, perhaps more important than all his previous birthdays. When his little sister Clara is born, the life of the rabbit family stops revolving around him. Is Clara crying? Everyone needs to find out what happened to her. Does Clara have a fever? She needs to be taken to a doctor. The programme of his eagerly anticipated birthday is in shambles and Charlie is convinced that the only person who cares about him is his granny. He decides to visit her, even though she lives quite far away. And so begins his adventurous quest, on which Charlie finds out how important he is not just to his family, but also to his friends and brave pets. He may even change his opinion on his new-born sister.
This family film about courage, friendship and understanding based on books by Rotraut Susanne Berner was made by Michael Ekblad, an acclaimed Swedish director of films for children, who also worked on the film Molly Monster, popular among Czech children. Many viewers will recognize his original artistic style, known from an immensely popular collection of picture books (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Night) published in the Czech Republic and also written by Rotraut Susanne Berner.

Fri 13/5/2022
10.00-11.15
free seats: 189
Cinema City 1 - Czech TV Hall

Sun 15/5/2022
09.00-10.15
free seats: 172
Cinema City 1 - Czech TV Hall

Where is Anne Frank?

Ari Folman | France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Israel | 2021 | 93 min | EN

For his latest film, Israeli director Ari Folman, known for his Oscar-nominated ani-doc Waltz with Bashir (2008), drew inspiration from the world-famous diary of Anne Frank, which he adapted into a comic book in 2017. The film’s story, however, doesn’t focus on Anne, whose diary documents her life between the years of 1942 and 1944, which she spent hiding with her family in a concealed apartment in an Amsterdam house. The director is interested in Anne’s imaginary friend Kitty, who was the addressee of Anne’s diary entries.
It’s this approach that differentiates Folman’s work from other (mostly live-action) adaptations of The Diary of Anne Frank. His film is not an adaptation but rather a variation on this topic. The story is set in present-day Amsterdam and its protagonist is the red-haired Kitty. One stormy night, she steps out of Anne’s diary, displayed in the Anne Frank Museum and, dressed in 1940s fashion, sets out to look for her friend. She finds the Anne Frank Library, Museum and Theatre – but there’s no sign of Anne herself. Her original story permeates the film and seems pressingly topical. Kitty suddenly realises the limits of her own existence, becomes close with a young pickpocket named Peter and finds herself on the run from the police. This smoothly animated film with an original story, atmospheric depiction of the setting and playfully stylised characters was included in the Cannes Film Festival Official Selection.

Fri 13/5/2022
12.30-14.03
free seats: 58
Cinema City 1 - Czech TV Hall

Sat 14/5/2022
10.00-11.33
free seats: 9
Cinema City 4

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