Sokol Spirit’s 3rd Friday - CZECH FILM SERIES

PRESENTING OUR 2023-24 EDUCATIONAL LINE-UP OF CZECH FILM CLASSES

(English Subtitles) on the 3^rd Friday of the Month.  The Czech films start at 7pm in our Czech classroom upstairs and with donation of $5 you get a free pilsner, pop, or water. Our Czech language instructor will be introducing you to all the film background and will be there to answer questions. This is our 10^th season!                                                                                                   

MARK YOUR CALENDARS NOW!!!!!

2023

September 15 Accidental Army: The Amazing True Story of The Czechoslovak Legion (in World War I), 2009, 46 minutes, English, Documentary. PG Most of the action of this story takes place on a train. Fitting, because with every anecdote, interview and unearthed image, Accidental Army moves like a train. It is fast paced, covering a slew of improbable heroes and ruthless villains. Only WWI and the Russian Revolution could have overshadowed the unlikely birth of a great European nation…many participants were American Sokol members who returned to their native land.  Guest speaker asked.

October 20 The Noonday Witch/ Polední čarodějnice, 2016, 85 minutes, Subtitles. PG, Drama.

During a blisteringly hot summer, an attractive widow moves with her young daughter to her mysteriously deceased husband’s native village, but the stresses of single parenthood and the new locale threaten family serenity in the psychological horror film.

November 17 Charlatan/ Dryáčník, 2020, 113 minutes, Subtitles, PG13, Docu-Drama. Czech-Polish-Irish-Slovak drama directed by Agnieszka Holland based loosely on the healer Jan Mikolášek, who cured hundreds of people using plant-based remedies. It was selected as the Czech entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards making the February shortlist. It won five awards including Best Film at the 2021 Czech Lion Awards.

December 15, Chasing Fifty/ Padesátka, 2015, 97 minutes, Subtitles, PG. Comedy Set in the beautiful snowy Krkonoše Mountians, the film centers around the Three Kings 50 km Cross-Country Ski Race. The story holds the secret of one mountain family connecting stories of surrounding members of local community. The cast of characters includes a one-legged female skier, a snowmobile driver who doesn’t drink on the Three Kings Holiday, an infertile womanizer, and a barman who delights in fortune telling.   

2024

February 16, Barefoot or Barefoot on Stalks/ Po strništi bos, 2017, 111 minutes, Subtitles, PG The film follows the young boy Eda Souček and his extended family during World War II. The family has to move to his family's home in the countryside home because Eda's father refuses to Heil in his job. Eda makes new friends and gets used to life in the village. He also meets his uncle who is known as Vlk. Vlk doesn't get along with rest of the family because he tried to strangle his mother. Eda eventually befriends Vlk. Life in the village is influenced by war. A prequel to The Elementary School shown September 5, 2014

March 15, Zátopek, 2021, 131 minutes, Subtitles, PG Athlete Ron Clarke competes at the 1968 Summer Olympics but fails to win any medal. Feeling disappointed that he might have lost his last chance to win an Olympics medal he starts to doubt his career and decides to meet Emil Zátopek (Czech Olympian) whom he adores. The film is about their dialogue during which the audience can learn retrospectively about Zátopek's sports career and his life.  A GREAT Sports film, many shots show athletes in Sokol uniform and stadiums like the Strahov where several Slets have been held.

April 19, Servants/ Sluhové, 2020, 80 minutes, B/W, Subtitles, PG Czechoslovakia, 1980.  The totalitarian Communist regime demands allegiance from all its subjects, including the clergy.  Michal and Juraj are conflicted novitiates whose seminary is under increasing pressure to mold its students into satisfactory citizens.  With the school on the brink of dissolution, and its head priest a target for blackmail, the two must choose between collaborating as informants or becoming targets of the secret police.  Shot in striking, atmospheric black and white, Servants is both a brooding morality tale and a taut Cold War era political thriller that “shivers with anti-authoritarian sentiment beneath its serene monochrome aesthetic”.

May 17, Anthropoid, 2006, 120 minutes, Subtitles, PG In December 1941, German occupation in Europe has neared its height. Two agents from the Czechoslovak exile government, a Slovak soldier, Jozef Gabčík and a Czech, Jan Kubiš are parachuted into their occupied country. Jozef is injured when he crashes through a tree upon landing, but both men set out to find their contact in Czechoslovakia. They are discovered shortly after by pretending resistance fighters who turn out to be traitors; one is shot by Jozef but the other man escapes. Stealing their truck, the agents head for Prague. When they seek out their contact, they are directed to Dr. Eduard, a veterinary who stitches Jozef's foot, and arranges for their meeting with other resistance members in the occupied Czechoslovakia, led by "Uncle" Jan Zelenka-Hajský. The agents are located aside other ones in a concealed basement of the Saints Cyril and Methodius Cathedral in Prague. They reveal that they are to execute "Operation Anthropoid," the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the main architect of the Jewish Final Solution, and the Reichsprotektor of German–occupied Czechoslovakia.

Sokol Spirit’s Education Committee reserves the right to change movies due to circumstances beyond their control.

DO NOT FORGET WORLD BEER CLUB

follows in the building’s lower level starting at 8pm!

Sokol Spirit is a 501(C)(3) not-for-profit organization.