Karel Vachek

Czech Republic

Karel Vachek

director, film school representative, script writer, producer

Communism and the Net or the End of Representative Democracy

Communism and the Net or the End of Representative Democracy

A new, cheerful film essay by Karel Vachek is a collage composed of staged passages from literature, personal memories, and tableaux from world history.
Obscurantist and His Lineage or The Pyramids' Tearful Valleys

Obscurantist and His Lineage or The Pyramids' Tearful Valleys

Karel Vachek’s latest documentary essay deals with the fine line between an internal belief in God and institutionalized religion. At the same time it brings up the need for a healthy sense of skepticism and the benefit…
Záviš, the Prince of Pornofolk Under the Influence of Griffith’s Intolerance and Tati’s Mr. Hulot’s Holiday or The Foundation and Doom of Czechoslovakia

Záviš, the Prince of Pornofolk Under the Influence of Griffith’s Intolerance and Tati’s Mr. Hulot’s Holiday or The Foundation and Doom of Czechoslovakia

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…
Who Will Guard the Guard? Dalibor or The Key to Uncle Tom's Cottage

Who Will Guard the Guard? Dalibor or The Key to Uncle Tom's Cottage

The fourth and final part of the documentary tetralogy Little Capitalist that mirrors the ups and downs of post-revolution Czech society. Stage director J.A. Pitínský leads rehearsals of Bedřich Smetana's opera Dalibor…
Bohemia Docta or The Labyrinth of the World and the Lust-house of the Heart (A Divine Comedy)

Bohemia Docta or The Labyrinth of the World and the Lust-house of the Heart (A Divine Comedy)

Egon Bondy prophesies an inferno of global capitalism, Jim Čert admits to collaborating with the secret police, Jaroslav Foglar can’t find a bottle-opener for his beer, while Ivan Diviš makes observations about his own…
CWhat Is to Be Done? (A Journey from Prague to Český Krumlov, or How I Formed a New Government)

CWhat Is to Be Done? (A Journey from Prague to Český Krumlov, or How I Formed a New Government)

Quite a few years have passed since November 1989. Czechoslovakia has been divided up and, in the Czech Republic, Václav Klaus’s right- wing government is in power. Karel Vachek follows on from his film New Hyperion,…
A New Hyperion, or Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

A New Hyperion, or Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

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…
Elective Affinities

Elective Affinities

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…
100-Year Flood

100-Year Flood

Documentary about the dam failure at Cicov in June 1965.
Moravian Hellas

Moravian Hellas

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. After the film was shown, the director was not able to…
Kamil Lhoták, a film about the painter

Kamil Lhoták, a film about the painter

Talking about art doesn’t work, if I want to say truth. When I express some rules I consider to go for this or that work of art, they look like a demagogic thesis. If I don’t want their stupidity to be offensive, I have…
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