Knoflikari(1997) Apr 2026

The film opens with a strange prologue in 1945 Kokura, Japan, where four men curse the bad weather—unaware that the rain is the only thing saving them from the atomic bomb originally destined for their city. Fast forward 50 years to Prague, 1995, and the ghost of that historical event continues to ripple through a series of "tragicomic" vignettes.

Knoflíkáři captured the "restlessness" of the post-communist Czech Republic, where the old rules were gone and the new ones hadn't quite settled. It’s often compared to the work of (specifically Night on Earth ) or the absurdist surrealism of Luis Buñuel . Knoflikari(1997)

If you haven’t yet experienced the surreal, dark brilliance of Petr Zelenka’s Knoflíkáři (translated as Buttoners ), you’re missing one of the most original pieces of Czech cinema to emerge from the 1990s. Forget standard linear plots; this film is a kaleidoscope of six interconnected stories that weave together social satire, historical speculation, and some truly bizarre human perversions. The film opens with a strange prologue in

While the chapters seem independent at first, they are tightly linked by shared motifs and "cause and effect": It’s often compared to the work of (specifically