Martyrs of Striving

When Death wants to bring the plague to Württemberg in 1349, he has not reckoned with the two guard soldiers Volckel and Utz, who engage him in a heated argument about plague ordinances and entry regulations.

The Taste of Others

Unpolished and ultra-pragmatic industrialist Jean-Jacques Castella reluctantly attends Racine's tragedy "Berenice" in order to see his niece play a bit part. He is taken with the play's strangely familiar-looking leading lady Clara Devaux. During the course of the show, Castella soon remembers that he once hired and then promptly fired the actress as an English language tutor. He immediately goes out and signs up for language lessons. Thinking that he is nothing but an ill-tempered philistine with bad taste, Clara rejects him until Castella charms her off her feet.

Henry V

In the midst of the Hundred Years War, the young King Henry V of England embarks on the conquest of France in 1415.

Balada z hadrů

Jan Werich and Miroslav Horníček in the legendary play of the Liberated Theatre.

Knights of the Round Table

In Camelot, kingdom of Arthur and Merlin, Lancelot is well known for his courage and honor. But one day he must quit Camelot and the Queen Guinevere's love, leaving the Round Table without protection.

As You Like It

Witty, playful and utterly magical, the story is a compelling romantic adventure in which Rosalind and Orlando's celebrated courtship is played out against a backdrop of political rivalry, banishment and exile in the Forest of Arden - set in 19th-century Japan.

Kosmas a paní Božetěcha

Witches of God

In a world ravaged by the plague, women hunted as witches and burned alive. Three women stand against this tyranny as one is accused of witchcraft. Keeping their own secrets and demons from each other they try to survive the dangerous journey.

Bogeyman

A raucous, angry exorcism of relationships and assorted fears, shadowed by the Big One: the plague of AIDS.

Another Woman

Marion is a woman who has learned to shield herself from her emotions. She rents an apartment to work undisturbed on her new book, but by some acoustic anomaly she can hear all that is said in the next apartment in which a psychiatrist holds his office. When she hears a young woman tell that she finds it harder and harder to bear her life, Marion starts to reflect on her own life. After a series of events she comes to understand how her unemotional attitude towards the people around her affected them and herself.

The Genius of Gothic Art

Death and the devil, nudity and eroticism, horror in blazing colours, Gothic art cast a spell over people 500 years ago. In these image-poor times, art deliberately and skilfully played with the emotions of the viewer, triggering fear, devotion, but also rapture. Art documentary on German gothic art of the late-middle ages.

Three Pages

An unassuming middle-aged accountant learns he has only weeks to live. Rather than tell everyone, Martin determines to learn the three pages of a Bach adagio for piano he'd abandoned as a child. That accomplished, he performs the piece for his wife and friends, completing his life and thanking those who brightened it along the way.

Die Pilgerin

In the 14th century, a young merchant's daughter from southern Germany sets off on the adventurous Way of St. James to faraway Santiago de Compostela to fulfill her father's last wishes and bring his heart there. Disguised as a man, the pilgrim is hunted by pursuers set on her by her conniving brother.

True West

A screenwriter gets conned out of selling a script to a Hollywood producer by his brother, who pitches his own idea for a movie. This video recording of the 1982 Steppenwolf Theatre Company production was later broadcast by PBS.

1789

Recording of the play 1789, a collective creation by Théâtre du Soleil at La Cartoucherie de Vincennes in 1970, edited from several shows.

Marketa Lazarová

Mikolás and his brother Adam end up with a young German hostage of noble blood during a robbery. While their clan prepares for the wrath of the German king, Mikolás is sent to pressure his neighbor Lazar into a defense pact. Persuasion fails and he abducts Lazar's daughter Marketa on the eve of her initiation as a nun in an act of vengeance.

The Valley of the Bees

Cast out by his father, young Ondrej joins the Order of the Teutonic Knights, where he is raised by strict monk Armin. After years of hardship, Ondrej escapes from the Order when he is wrongly punished, and sets out for his former home. Arriving to discover his father to be dead, Ondrej now not only assumes control of his father's properties, but seeks to marry his former stepmother.

The Masque of the Red Death

A European prince terrorizes the local peasantry while using his castle as a refuge against the "Red Death" plague that stalks the land.

Actresses

Marcelline is an actress. Forty, single and childless, she begins rehearsals for Turgenev’s A Month in the Country. Denis, the director, admires her greatly and promises he’ll make her happy on stage — she will shine. But things don’t go to plan.

Brother Sun, Sister Moon

In his delirium from his return from war, Francesco Bernardone goes back in his memories to the days when he lived for parties and carnal pleasures. He slowly recovers, but after the illness he is no longer the Francesco that everybody knew. Instead of spending hours in taverns, he meditates on the beauty of God's creatures, soon renouncing his riches and his family with plans to rebuild an abandoned church and his life.