Released Date:
1997-01-24
Languages:
Czech, Russian, Slovak
Countries:
Czech Republic, UK, France
Runtime:
105 min
Rated:
PG-13
IMDB Ratings:
7.8 (11781 Reviews)
Director:
Jan SverèkPavel Taussig (story)
Zdenek Sverèk (screenplay)
Franta Louka is a concert cellist in Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia, a confirmed bachelor and a lady's man. Having lost his place in the state orchestra, he must make ends meet by playing at funerals and painting tombstones. But he has run up a large debt, and when his friend, the grave-digger Mr. Broz, suggests a scheme for making a lot of money by marrying a Russian woman so that she can get her Czech papers, he reluctantly agrees. She takes advantage of the situation to emigrate to West Germany, to her lover; and leaves her five-year-old son with his grandmother; when the grandmother dies, Kolya must come and live with his stepfather - Louka.
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