24/03/2005 - Spring is lovely indeed for Czech cinema with two national productions at the top of the box-office, The Imp ("Skrítek") by Tomas Vorel and Wrong Side Up ("Príbehy obycejného sílenství") by Petr Zelenka

Spring is lovely indeed for Czech cinema with two national productions at the top of the box-office, The Imp ("Skrítek") by Tomas Vorel and Wrong Side Up ("Príbehy obycejného sílenství" ) by Petr Zelenka. From the 17th to the 20th of March, they reached the highest positions of the top 10, ahead of seven American blockbusters such as Shall We Dance, Meet the Fockers, Million Dollar Baby, and Aviator. In the 10th position is another Czech movie, Bonds of Blood ("Krev zmizelého") by Milan Cieslar.br>
Distributed on 23 copies by Warner Bros, The Imp earned $75,000 in only three days, thereby scoring as best average benefit per screen —a nice start for this comic tragedy coproduced by the director Tomas Vorel, Studio Mirage, and Ceská Televize. The film is about the adventures of an eccentric family —the father is a butcher and a womanizer, and the mother spends her time dreaming of a revenge upon him— coming to the city from the countryside.
As for Wrong Side Up, distributed by Bioscop on 26 copies, it keeps attracting more spectators, and has now earned $615,000 in two weeks. This film, starring Ivan Trojan, Zuzana Sulajova, Nina Diviskova, and Miroslav Krobot, focuses on Petr, a 33-year-old loser who works in an airport. His wife has left him, and he has to keep up not only with his parents and their problems but also with his crazy boss. With Wrong Side Up, Petr Zelenka is dealing with the strangeness of our individual lives, as he already did in his previous films, like Knoflikari, Rok dabla, or Samotar.
Milan Cieslar’sBonds of Blood is not doing bad at all, with $47,000 won in ten days, also distributed by Bioscop (14 copies). It is a period movie on the years 1939-1961 where a Czech woman and a Baltic man meet in a hospital but he commits suicide after their daughter’s birth. After a long (and eventful) time, the latter tries to understand her father’s story and roots and escapes the communist regime with the help of her mother who accepts to sacrifice and go get arrested by the secret services. The cast includes Vilma Cibulková, Ester Geislerová, and Martin Huba. The film was coproduced by Centrum dramatické tvorby Ceské televize studia Brno and Happy Celluloid.

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(Translated from French)