VISITING ARTIST—This dark drama about a secret agent using his power to destroy the lives of those who oppose the 1980s Communist regime is the first veritable and engaging thriller to come out since the Velvet Revolution. None of the characters, including the agent and his archrival in politics and love, lead content or exciting lives and all of them are looking for an escape. But there is nowhere to go and the despair at the heart of the film mirrors the general experience of life in those days in Czechoslovakia. The film took home every major award of the Czech Film Academy, as well as the newly established Czech Critics Awards in 2011, shining a spotlight on Ondřej Malý’s debut in a leading role. (146 mins.)

Radim Špaček will introduce the film.

Join us in the Andree Stevens Room following the Q&A session for a reception hosted by Becherovka.

Coming fresh off the heels of international premieres at the Sundance and Rotterdam Festivals, Sláma—whose debut WILD BEES (2001, PIFF) won him the Tiger Award at Rotterdam and whose sophomore work SOMETHING LIKE HAPPINESS (2005, PIFF) traveled the globe, including a stop at the New York Film Festival—returns in fine form with his fourth feature film. The small town story again rings painfully true, centering on a middle-aged man in a downward spiral who sees his teenage son making the same mistakes. With his wife’s patience running out, his last resort is a friendship with another loner. Through crushing tragedy, Sláma finds transcendent moments of grace and redemption. (90 mins.)

Many villages in contemporary eastern Slovakia face a dire future—not for lack of comfort, nor, in the case portrayed in Hníková’s documentary, for lack of jobs either. The dwindling population in this picturesque setting is due to the dwindling choice of suitable partners and to the young generation’s reserved attitude toward marriage and long-term relationships. So the local mayor decides to step in and introduce his fellow thirtysomething citizens to the benefits of couplehood. The smile brought about by his efforts quickly freezes, though the film has plenty of humor based on witty production design. The film premiered last year to delighted audiences at the Berlin International Film Festival. (72 mins.)

In Slovak with English subtitles.

Director Sedláček is one of the loudest voices in Czech cinema commenting on current society, sometimes with the lightness of satire, but often, as in this case, with a searingly straightforward critique. This critically acclaimed drama (graced with the main award from the Czech Critics this year) centers on a business executive, a member of the nouveau riche, on the run from the police and masking his escape as a family trip. Though he claims he did it all—including the embezzlement—for the good of his family. (90 mins.)

Before becoming the first president of free Czechoslovakia after 1989 and a world-celebrated politician, Václav Havel, who passed away this winter, was first and foremost a great playwright. In the 1960s, Joseph Papp premiered all his plays at the venerable Public Theater in Manhattan, inviting Havel for his first visit to America in 1968. After leaving office, Havel returned to writing and to a theme of his from the ’70s about a womanizing politico at the time of life when he is no longer the center of attention, protected by his office against his political archrival. A searing satire, this work of theater on film fulfilled Havel’s lifelong dream of making a movie. Based as much on Shakespeare’s "King Lear" as on the president’s real-life experience in politics, the resonance with Havel’s personal life is allegedly accidental, though the author’s claim is made harder to believe by the casting of his wife, Dagmar, in the role of the politico’s girlfriend. (94 mins.)

Another film set in the ’80s, though lighter in tone, this bittersweet comedy chronicles the highs and lows of four teenage boys coming of age amid the (sometimes laughable) strictures of everyday life. The receipt of a state-issued identity card marks their entrance into adulthood, with all its plusses—the ability to buy alcohol freely—and its minuses—friskings by police and the need to make decisions about what comes next in life. Trojan returns to collaborating with screenwriter Petr Jarchovský, who penned Trojan’s directorial debut ŽELARY (2003) and Jan Hřebejk’s DIVIDED WE FALL (2000, PIFF), both nominated for Oscars in the Foreign Language Film category and both produced by Trojan as well. (129 mins.)