The program of short films offers a representative cross-section of works created at Prague’s film school throughout its eighty-year history. The eight selected films vividly illustrate the diversity of student filmmaking, encompassing fiction, documentary, and animation, as well as both lesser-known works and internationally acclaimed titles (including a Student Academy Award winner). Together, they span a wide range of styles and genres, from pantomime slapstick and historical drama to mockumentary and animated fantasy. The selection includes early works by filmmakers such as Jan Němec and Jan Svěrák, who went on to become major figures in Czech cinema, alongside outstanding talents from younger generations, including Daria Kashcheeva, Bára Anna Stejskalová, and Marie-Magdalena Kochová.

List of films:
• Encounter
• The Loaf of Bread
• Oil Gobblers
• Closed Due to the Family Mourning
• Pripyat Piano
• Daughter
• Love Is Just a Death Away
• 3 MWh


Film Synopsis:

• Encounter (Vladimír Svitáček, 1953, 5 min.)
Vladimír Svitáček, later renowned as a co-creator of the multimedia theatre Laterna Magika and the world’s first interactive movie Kinoautomat, depicts a crowded Prague tram in this pantomime-inspired comic sketch, featuring outstanding performances by the young Miloš Kopecký and Jiří Sovák. The film also includes rare archival footage of the area surrounding Prague’s Main Railway Station.
Director: Vladimír Svitáček
Screenwriter: Vladimír Svitáček
Director of Photography: Jerzy Kotowski
Original Score: Jaroslav Ježek
Cast: Miloš Kopecký, Jiří Sovák, Jana Werichová-Kvapilová, Káťa Kopecká etc.

• The Loaf of Bread (Jan Němec, 1960, 11 min.)
This early student film by Jan Němec, one of the leading figures of the Czech New Wave, can be regarded as a thematic precursor to his masterpiece Diamonds of the Night. In the final days of the Second World War, a train carrying concentration camp prisoners stands at a railway station. Three exhausted inmates contemplate how to reach a nearby freight car loaded with bread, hoping to regain enough strength before attempting their escape.
Director: Jan Němec
Screenwriter: Jan Němec, Eva Límanová
Director of Photography: Jiří Šámal
Cast: Ivan Renč, Jan Bartůšek, Oldřich Bláha

• Oil Gobblers (Jan Svěrák, 1988, 20 min.)
Jan Svěrák’s Oil Gobblers was made in 1988 as his graduation film at the Department of Documentary Film. This mockumentary follows a fictional scientific expedition in search of an unknown creature known as the “oil gobbler,” whose very existence defies all the principles of life in a healthy natural environment. The film turns a serious ecological issue completely on its head, presenting its story with such convincing realism that the hoax is almost flawless. In June 1989, the film received the Student Academy Award presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Director, Screenwriter: Jan Svěrák
Director of Photography: Ladislav Štěpán
Original Score: Vendula Kašpárková
Cast: Lubomír Beneš, Jiří Němec, Ivo Kašpar, Jan Rokyta, Emil Nedbal etc.

• Closed Due to the Family Mourning (Saša Gedeon, 1991, 9 min.)
This short film by screenwriter and director Saša Gedeon is based on Alberto Moravia’s short story Fire. A bittersweet vignette, it portrays a single day in a small Italian barbershop on the eve of the Second World War. Rather than relying on an intricate plot, the film derives its power from its understated emotional tension and evocative atmosphere. Made during Gedeon’s second year at FAMU, the film received an award at the FFICS – International Festival of Film School Students in Tokyo in 1992. The prize money enabled the director to make his feature-film debut Indian Summer.
Director, Screenwriter: Saša Gedeon
Director of Photography: Miloš Kabyl
Cast: Barbora Hrzánová, David Vávra, Jakub Špalek, Renata Beccerová

• Pripyat Piano (Eliška Cílková, 2019, 18 min.)
Many of the original inhabitants of Pripyat have never come to terms with the Chernobyl disaster. Some of them began composing their own songs and poems and returning to their apartments within the forbidden radioactive zone. This documentary concert, reflecting on the presence of a unique space, calls for the return of humankind as both creator and performer. In the poems and songs recited by the former residents of Pripyat themselves, a powerful connection between people and home can still be heard to endure. The film has been screened at major documentary film festivals and has received numerous awards.
Director, Editor, Original Score, Sound Design: Eliška Cílková
Director of Photography: Tomáš Frkal

• Daughter (Daria Kashcheeva, 2019, 14 min.) This puppet animation by Daria Kashcheeva tells the story of a father and daughter who, despite mutual misunderstanding, eventually find their way back to each other. The film’s emotional intensity and unsettling atmosphere are enhanced by an unusually dynamic camera – rare in animation – and by close-up shots of the puppets’ faces, whose expressions feel remarkably lifelike. The film won the prestigious Student Academy Award (in the category of international animation) and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
Director, Screenwriter, Director of Photography: Daria Kashcheeva
Original Score: Petr Vrba
Editor: Alexander Kashcheev

• Love Is Just a Death Away (Bára Anna Stejskalová, 2020, 10 min.)
A dead dog, a landfill, and beautiful moths high in the sky – this is the world of Steve, a parasite desperately searching for a kindred soul. Yet every attempt at connection ends in disappointment. A small bird he saves from another dog dies. A rat that touches him dies. Cockroaches, under the guise of friendship, strip him down to the bone. Completely defenseless inside the skeleton of his former host, he nearly loses his life under the wheels of a machine that crushes waste. The film has screened at numerous festivals and received the award for Best Student Animated Short Film as well as the Audience Award for Best Animated Short Film at the Palm Springs International Film Festival.
Director, Editor, Original Score, Sound Design: Bára Anna Stejskalová
Director of Photography: Tomáš Frkal

• 3 MWh (Marie-Magdalena Kochová, 2024, 13 min.)
An employee at a nuclear power plant, obsessed with counting, sets himself a limit on how much electricity he wants to consume for the rest of his life. In this dark yet masterful cinematic poem shot on 35mm film, Marie-Magdalena Kochová presents the story of a man whose life is moving toward transformation. It is a tender acceptance of the idea that we are not only our bodies, but also energy. The film has been screened at numerous international festivals and Czech Film Critics Award.
Director: Marie-Magdalena Kochová
Screenwriter: Josef Kokta
Director of Photography: Kristina Kůlová
Original Score: Haštal Hapka
Cast: Jaroslav Pížl