More-Than-Feature-Length Films by Karel Vachek

Through a mosaic of events, opinions, and goings on, Karel Vachek records the situation preceding the Czechoslovak elections in 1990. With subtle irony he juxtaposes various phenomena and on the screen portrays the surprising socio-political context of the incredible whirl of the first free elections after the fall of the communist regime...

Karel Vachek’s latest documentary essay deals with the fine line between an internal belief in God and institutionalized religion.

A dog’s funeral becomes part of a chain of absurd events including a tomato ketchup battle, a reconstruction of the battle of Austerlitz and a motorbike show. Its common denominator is the commercial interest of sponsors and big buisness, the ambivalent winners of privatization and participants of numerous coruption affairs...

The most characteristic theme of the film, whose actors are symbolically “imprisoned” in the space of Prague’s National Theatre, is that of subversive battles launched against any sort of establishment (in politics, scholarship, and culture) and the rules or “laws” that frequently work against them—rules that, of course, also offer a moral justification for battle. Vachek, in this film, is interested in figures who engage in these kinds of battles, a majority of whom have already suffered some kind of setback...

On 22 March 1968 President Antonín Novotný gave in to the pressure of the reformist communists headed by Alexander Dubček and resigned. It is necessary to elect a new head of state who has set out on the path of „socialism with a human face“...

The film debut of Karel Vachek, the most important personality in Czech film documentaries and one of the most important names in Czech cinematography as a whole.

Legendary Czech documentary filmmaker and former head of FAMU's documentary department Karel Vachek returns to painting after 35 years. On the way from his exhibition in Tišnov, he shares his memories and distinctive views on art and life.

An idiosyncratic testimony of the condition of the Czech spirit at the turn of the millennium, presenting a melting pot of humanistic tradition, shades of the totalitarian past and, on occasion, bizarre expressions of nonconformist thinking. A merry collage of opinions and ideas inspired by hidden natural processes which attest to the profound intrinsic order of life.

A multifaceted film essay that, in many respects, reflects the "opposition” and proposes a creative approach to the kind of life which confronts creativity with providential determination. Literally an intellectual shift towards possible alternatives with the help of two buses, a colourful cast of characters and assorted film technicians. Arguably Karel Vachek’s most important work.

Television series The Golden Sixties examines new insights into Czech and Slovak cinema of the 1960s and the role of the Czechoslovak New Wave. This episode focuses on one of the most distinctive directors, Karel Vachek.

Film portrait of the czech painter Kamil Lhoták.

Documentary about the dam failure at Cicov in June 1965.

At the beginning of 2015, director Karel Vachek received a phone call from the National Film Archive saying that they got a box with footage from 1968 and that it could be his. August 1968, the speech of Josef Smrkovský, chairman of the National Assembly, and the treatment of one of Palach’s successors. For almost fifty years, Vachek believed that the shots were lost; now he will be able to use them in his new film.

The film audience and its transformation at the time of online communication; or, when the filmmakers can read what their viewers talk about after seeing their film... The first portrait of the Czechoslovak Film Database, a controversial phenomenon of contemporary Czech cinema.