Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 9/7/2015)

Ironically, the biggest name on view is Polish director Agnieszka Holland, who draws on her own experiences while studying at the FAMU film school for Burning Bush, which recalls the consequences of Prague student Jan Palach setting light to himself on Wenceslas Square in January 1969. Scripted by Stepan Hulik, this epic recreation centres on the efforts of Palach's mother Libuse (Jaroslava Pokorna) and brother Jiri (Petr Stach) to sue MP Vilem Novy (Martin Huba) for libel after he claimed the self-immolation was an insignificant part of a trumped-up conspiracy. The case also has profound effects on lawyer Dagmar Buresova (Tatiana Pauhofova) and her doctor husband, Radim (Jan Budar), as well as her boss Vladimir Charouz (Adrian Jastraban) and his activist daughter Vladka (Jenovefa Bokova). Even Palach's friend, Hana Cízková (Emma Smetana), is blackmailed into appearing on television to assert that his dying words had urged no one to follow his example.

Presiding magistrate Reznícková (Ivana Uhlirova) appeared to have been instructed to reach a predetermined judgement and the ways in which coercion were employed in Czechoslovakia are further exposed in all their vicious venality in Andrea Sedlácková's third feature, Fair Play, which is set in Czechoslovakia in the run up to the 1984 Olympic Games. Budding sprinter Judit Bárdos has great hopes of competing in Los Angeles. But, as her mother, former tennis champion Anna Geislerová, supported the Prague Spring, she is forbidden from having any involvement in elite sport. Geislerová wants Bárdos to be able to compete with team-mate Eva Josefíková and seize her chance to make a fresh start in the West. But she is distracted by dissident Roman Zach's request to produce some samizdat tracts that could land them all in trouble. Moreover, with her husband already in exile, Geislerová also has to decide whether to consent to her daughter taking steroids after Bárdos learns of their potential risks from boyfriend Ondrej Novák.

This would be a good moment to mention Gottland, a Czech-Polish-Slovakian co-production is not in the touring programme, but was recently screened by the Czech Centre and is worth keeping an eye out for in the future. This ambitious picture sees five young film-makers, Lukáš Kokeš, Petr Hátle, Viera Èákanyová, Rozálie Kohoutová, Klára Tasovská and Radovan Síbrt (who share the directing credit) seek out author Mariusz Szczygiel to ask his advice on how best to adapt the quintet of factual stories he chronicled in his bestseller, Gottland: Mostly True Stories from Half of Czechoslovakia, which centre on Lida Baarova, the actress who became the mistress of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels; Tomas Bata, the despotic founder of a footwear empire who ruled over his own Orwellian town; Otokar Švec, the sculptor who committed suicide before completing the world's biggest statue of Stalin; Lenka Reinerova, the writer whose 15 months in solitary confinement never officially happened; and Zdenek Adamec, the 19 year-old student who emulated Jan Palach by setting light to himself in a 2003 protest against the Velvet Revolution's failure to bring about democracy and equality.

Martin Dušek continues the documentary theme in Into the Clouds We Gaze, which heads into Northern Bohemia to meet Ráda, who spends his days driving around in his battered Ford Escort looking for work and his nights seeking glory at the various `tuning' competitions that provide petrolheads with a brief respite from the socio-economic realities of an area whose younger generation is under pressure from right-wing extremists to place the blame for their problems on the Roma population.

Switching regions, Tatiana Vilhelmová finds herself caught between two men in Miroslav Krobot's debut, Nowhere in Moravia, as she seeks solace from running a pub in a backwater village with sister Lenka Krobotová and their domineering mother, Johanna Tesarová, by sleeping with both lothario roofer Lukás Latinák and indecisive mayor Ivan Trojan. However, she is not alone in being free with her favours (she also has the odd fumble with gravedigger Jaroslav Plesl), as hard-drinking Simona Babcáková leads an equally promiscuous existence in the forest with husband Hynek Cermák and brother David Novotný.

Finally, Jan Hrebejk completes a trilogy about the sins of the past that he started with Kawasaki's Rose (2009) and Innocence (2011). At the outset, Honeymoon feels like a domestic dramedy centred around the wedding of pregnant Anna Geislerová and Stanislav Majer, who are both seeking happiness for the second time after her first marriage left her emotionally scarred and his left him to raise 13 year-old son Matej Zikán. But a shadow is cast over the happy day planned in the idyllic grounds of her parents' rural retreat in Southern Bohemia when an uninvited guest outstays his welcome.

Ironically, had Zikán's not broken his glasses, Geislerová and Majer could have made their fresh start without a hitch. But optician Jirí Cerný recognises Majer and follows him into the church where he is exchanging his views. He also tags along as the party makes its way to the marquee and, even though he is hardly dressed suitably for the occasion, he is feted by all and sundry and commended for the easy way in which he plays with the children. But Geislerová senses that Majer is uneasy and it becomes even more apparent that they have a connection when Cerný presents the bride and groom with an urn of ashes.

Majer forcibly escorts the stranger off the premises and he reassures Geislerová's strident younger sister Kristýna Nováková and her milquetoast spouse David Maj that everything is under control. But, while the guests dance and drink into the small hours, Cerný returns and he asks Geislerová for 10 minutes of her time so that she can know the truth about her new husband. She is appalled to learn that Majer and his mates were responsible for bullying Cerný and his gay friend so ferociously at school that the latter jumped to his death. Yet, when Geislerová confronts Majer with the revelation, he insists that Cerný and his pal were sneak thieves who got what was coming to them after they snitched to the teachers.

As Majer struggles to convince Geislerová that he is not a homophobe who tortured an innocent man into taking his own life, Cerný invites Zikán to see his dark room. But the attempt by Hrebejk and screenwriter Petr Jarchovský to tease the audience into believing that Cerný is about to exact some predatory revenge is entirely misjudged and rather deflects attention from Geislerová's agonising realisation that she had no idea about his violent streak when she promised to love him for better or worse.

This idea that one can never truly know even those closest to us is sobering in the extreme and Hrebejk and Jarchovský deftly set it off against the notions of trauma, guilt and forgiveness. But the precision of Martin Strba's visuals and Alois Fisárek's editing gives the impression that the audience is being manipulated and, to a certain degree, misled. Thus, while this is always compelling, it also feels a touch too calculated. Nevertheless, Geislerová (in her fourth film with Hrebejk) is typically superb and those familiar with Garbage, the City and Death will be amused by the contrasting roles that Majer and Cerný take in each film.