Karel Vachek

All Men Become Brothers

A film about the phenomenon of Alexander Dubček, a Czechoslovak politician, one of the most prominent personalities of the Prague Spring of 1968, author of the concept of “socialism with a human face”.

Communism and the Net, or the End of Representative Democracy

The six-hour essay in four parts examines the history of regimes and revolutions, leaders and martyrs, from a philosophical perspective. The collage of personal memories, staged scenes and archives of collective memory compares the Prague Spring to the Velvet Revolution and shows the exposure, conflict, crisis, and catharsis of the post-communist society.

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

A labyrinthine portrait of Czech culture on the brink of a new millennium. Egon Bondy prophesies a capitalist inferno, Jim Čert admits to collaborating with the secret police, Jaroslav Foglar can’t find a bottle-opener, and Ivan Diviš makes observations about his own funeral. This is the Czech Republic in the late 90s, as detailed in Karel Vachek’s documentary.

What Is to Be Done? A Journey from Prague to Ceský 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, thus continuing his series of comprehensive film documentaries in which he maps out Czech society and its real and imagined elites in his own unique way.