Directed by: Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson
USA, 2015, 90 min

Michael Stone makes a living motivating other people, but he himself lacks a fundamental zest for life and longs to be released from his everyday routine. Lisa seems to be the embodiment of that wish… Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman has proven that his scripts may not even need actors because his lines can make puppets come alive, and their sorrow differs in nothing to the human kind.

Directed by: Sean Ellis
Czech Republic, United Kingdom, France, 2016, 120 min

One of the key events of the Second World War – the assassination of Reichsprotektor Heydrich – may be filmed as a meticulous period piece, an exciting and, at the same time, oppressive drama,  a precise reconstruction of a heroic act, or a thoroughgoing study of human behavior in critical situations. Sean Ellis is one of the few filmmakers capable of combining it all and stamping it with his trademark style. We will present the opening movie of the 51st KVIFF as a world premiere.

Directed by: Woody Allen
USA, 2016, 96 min

Bobby is a timorous young man who’s headed out to Hollywood to get to know the world. After graduating from the school of hard knocks, he returns to New York and becomes a convivial man about town as the manager of a notorious establishment. Allen’s traditionally refined retro excursion to the dazzle and depravity of the 1930s.

Directed by: Karel Kachyňa
Czechoslovakia, 1970, 91 min

This political thriller was the only film to come out of 1960s Czechoslovakia that took aim at the highest party echelons. Kachyňa’s riveting exposé of power-struggle machinations is interwoven with a husband-and-wife psychological drama heightened by superb performances from Jiřina Bohdalová and Radoslav Brzobohatý.

Directed by: Luc Besson
France, 1994, 110 min

Léon is a professional hitman who cleans up other people’s messes with surgical precision. But when 12-year-old Mathilda shows up at his apartment door, the loner’s routine life takes an unexpected turn. Luc Besson’s cult thriller became a milestone in the career of actor Jean Reno, who imbued the withdrawn killer with an irresistible seductiveness.

Directed by: David Sís
Czech Republic, 2016, 88 min

The Czech band Lucie is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. We first encountered the group with a Walkman hanging off our belts, only to join them at the opera many years later. Most recently we enjoyed their unforgettable concert which opened the 50th Karlovy Vary IFF last year. In short, Lucie is a phenomenon of the Czech music scene, and David Sís pays tribute to the group in a unique documentary full of never-before-seen archive footage.

Directed by: Abel Ferrara
France, Belgium, Italy, 2014, 86 min

The final day of a mega-personality of Italian cultural and public life: poet, novelist, director, and actor Pier Paolo Pasolini, whose barbaric murder on November 2, 1975 has never been fully explained. In Abel Ferrara’s work, presented at the 2014 Venice festival, Willem Dafoe takes the titular lead.

Directed by: Ivan Zachariáš, Alice Nellis
Czech Republic, 2016, 120 min

HBO Europe is following up “Burning Bush” with an original project, the eight-part series “Wasteland” – with two episodes set to be screened at the festival as an exclusive world premiere. The drama of a village community struck by a series of mysterious and shocking events is the work of renowned commercials director and co-creator of the festival’s black-and-white trailers Ivan Zachariáš, in collaboration with filmmaker Alice Nellis.