- available formats: 35mm

Up and Down - directed by Jan Hrebejk

OFFICIAL SELECTION, TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL
OFFICIAL CZECH REPUBLIC ENTRY, ACADEMY AWARDS 2004
OFFICAL SELECTION, TELLURIDE FILM FESTIVAL

"Too good to be missed! A complex yet stiring comedy about racism, xenophobia, and the confusions of post-communist life. 'Up and down' has a sweetness of spirit concealed only partly by a tartness that billy wilder might have loved."
- Joe Morgenstern, the Wall Street Journal

In the dead of the night, near the Czech-Slovak border, two smugglers discover their truckload of illegal Indian immigrants have left a baby behind.

In a small Prague apartment, Franta (Jiri Machacek) and Mila (Natasa Burger) dream of having a child, but Franta - on probation because of his soccer hooliganism past - is not allowed to adopt, and Mila is unable to conceive. After cashing in on her savings, Mila decides to buy a baby from a pawnshop that fronts a den of thieves and pickpockets.

Meanwhile, an unusual family reunion is taking place: Academy professor Otto (Jan Triska) collapses while teaching, prompting his estranged son Martin (Petr Forman, son of director Milos) to return to Prague from Australia to see his father and his mother, Vera (Emilia Vasaryova), long separated from Otto whom she still pines for. Otto is now living with the beautiful and much younger Hana (Ingrid Timkova), who works in a refugee aid center helping immigrants to adjust to their new lives.

 

2005, Czech Republic, 108 minutes.