Lima

A gorgeously animated, very grotesque story about the difficulties of adopting an alien with the appearance of a little boy. Unceasing volleys of laughter in the cinema from beginning to end. The best piece in the Ryan animation section at this year's SFS.

Rather than the formal aspect, I would attribute the main prize at the Berlinale to the subject matter, which is so strong that a lesser rating than 4* is out of the question. It's definitely better not to know anything about the plot beforehand, so that the impact of the final chilling twist, the explanation of why the protagonist behaved the way she did all along, is as great as possible. Esma's (the flawless Mirjana Karanovic) impressive and divinely rendered confession at the end of the film is bound to move anyone with a modicum of perception.

A boring, tedious sequence of unfunny dialogue and amateurish performances. One sometimes wonders what the Fund for the Development and Support of Czech Cinema puts money into...

You don't have to flip through the books of Josef Augusta and Zdeněk Burian to visit prehistory. Just take a raft and paddle down Ethiopia's largest river, the Omo, to the ends where tourists rarely set their feet. An unimpressive but still interesting documentary in which the most striking thing is the aggressiveness of the thieving Morsi tribe, in whose territory you have to pay to breathe their air, and the chills from their practice of "beautifying" their women in a way in which they cut their lower lip and insert larger and larger plates into it over time. You will also see that it’s possible to survive being bitten by the Gabuna viper, whose venom can easily kill several dozen people, and you will discover with a bitter feeling that the only thing that our "advanced" civilization can unfortunately provide to primitive tribes deep in the African jungles are lethal Kalashnikovs in the hands of bushmen.

I like Vladimír Merta very much, both as an artist and as a person. But even he, in one of the lead roles, couldn’t save this film from feeling like a completely missed opportunity and a disappointment. It's like an experimentally conceived piece in which interesting ideas are occasionally heard in a monotonous voice from the actors, but they are safely lost in the all-encompassing chaos of the filmmaking. I have no idea what kind of filmmaking stream Ivan Balaďa represents and after this film I don't want to know. Chekhov must have been spinning in his grave like the blades in a blender.

A convincing demonstration that it is possible to live a full life with a serious physical disability, even at a professional sports level. In this case it is a kind of wheelchair rugby, a contact sport in which there is no shortage of hard tackles and falls. The documentary does not try to wring emotions out of the viewer, to make them feel sorry for its physically disabled characters by saying, "Gee, poor bastards!" On the contrary, it tries to captivate the viewer with the story of two top athletes, each on a different side of the fence (namely, the rival teams of the USA and Canada), and its concept tries to create the impression that the wheelchair under is not the slightest handicap. In the end, a sober, factual, emotionally affair that avoids being manipulative. And with great music as a cherry on top.

Although the film was made in a very bad social atmosphere and Kádár distanced himself from it, the result is not that bad. The poetic narrative about the suddenly born passion for a young woman, jealousy and its tragic outcome is mainly based on the natural beauty of the Danube region, the convincing performance of Rade Markovic, unknown to me until now, and Liš's flawless music, which adds a greater emotional dimension to the story. However, compared to the masterpieces of Kádár and Klose from the previous decade, it doesn't hold up, it lacks a deeper idea, and the prevailing feeling is as if recent distressing events and creative disagreements had taken their toll on the directorial virtuosity of both men. Creative fatigue, you might say.

Smash the icons to the ground! I find it amusing that according to some critics Laura is one of the best noir films ever. Yes, the atmosphere is great, with lots of tobacco smoke, dark tuning, shadows, incessant rain. Unfortunately, the plot of Preminger's film doesn't even stand as an average detective story, the dialogues are banal and the final resolution is so incredibly trivial that you can see it coming from the very beginning. One of this year’s biggest disappointments at SFS.

Are you being bullied by a neighbour, nagged by your boss, or do you feel that nobody likes you and decency among people has disappeared? Go see Donaldson's latest film. It’s a hugely positive film that not only beautifully tells the story of following your dreams, but all the characters Munro meets on his journey to Utah's racetrack are kind and welcoming – the tough bikers, the drag queens, the farmer, the boss of the car dealership, the track judges. Helping your fellow man is still a thing, that's what this film is about. And Hopkins, with his beautifully delivered sincere laughter when he finds out that he is enrolled among the contestants, once again proves what a great actor he still is, even after years of "fasting".

Alice in Wonderland on acid. It might get a bit monotonous after a while, but I can't help it, I enjoyed this conception of the world around me through the imaginative fantasies of a little girl, I enjoyed going out with her doll "friends" (or rather their heads) to explore the countryside, with the mentally handicapped Luke I enjoyed swimming in the sea of tall blades of grass and falling down the rabbit hole. And I can see why Terry chose Cullin's novel, it was the perfect material for his unbridled imagination and playfulness. Gilliam is back on form after a bit of a break isn’t he?