Catalogue of Czech Television Programmes
The story of this serial is set in contemporary days and tells about the lives of a group of high-school students in their final year, their parents and teachers. The young people are on the threshold of life, and life does mostly not consist of fun and games. Life can be difficult and unfair and young people have to learn to accept its gifts and its minor and major losses; finally they come to terms with it all, each in his or her own way. 1. Back Home The summer holidays are over and Susan and her friends are in the final year of high school. Before school starts, Susan and her family have to move out of the villa in the exclusive quarter of town, to an apartment in a housing estate. Susan and her friends have no liking at all for the new owners of the villa. Moreover, next morning they discover that their son is a new boy in their class. 2. On their Own Two Feet The small, overcrowded new apartment brings out the worst in Susans relationship with her parents and the girl runs away from home. But she has to live somewhere and has no money. Where will she find a job to earn her keep and allow her to attend school too? In this case courage and willpower are not enough. 3. Pandoras Box One cant live in the homes of friends for long; Susan even tries to spend her nights in the school building. She works in a pub at night, but thats a pretty exhausting combination with days spent at school, even though Susan is no longer the spoilt little girl she used to be. But for how much longer can she go on like this, what with all the studying she must do for her final exams? She seems to be falling asleep over her text books. Her best friend Katka isnt particularly interested in her problems right now; she has fallen in love with their classmate Michael. Blindly in love, she doesnt even notice that Michael is interested in someone else. 4. What a Birthday! Susan gets a financially advantageous job offer to pose in the nude for a series of photographs. At first she refuses, but as the photos are for a calendar to be printed only for a closed circle of customers and the fee offered is really big, she accepts the job finally. Her difficult housing problem seems to have been resolved successfully too and her stretch of bad luck might hopefully be at an end. But there is always some but. 5. Angel on Earth When your best friends betrays you that really hurts. Susans nude photos turn up at school, and as Katkas father is the photographer, obviously it must have been Katka who had her revenge on her friend because her beloved Michael had left her because of Susan. A fateful meeting occurs between Susan and Michaels father at a large party held at the occasion of the christening of the calendar holding Susans photos. 6. Advent Time Christmas is approaching and it seems that presents are already being handed out in the villa quarter. Thanks to Susans new contacts, her father gets a job at last. Michael is head over heels in love with Susan and is picking up the courage to apply for Film College, and Katka has at last found a boy-friend she does not have to share with anyone. At least that is what she thinks. But everything must be paid for. 7. The Saddest Christmas Surely there must be a competition on in the villa quarter as to whose Christmas will be the most dismal. Katka is disappointed again, Susan is all alone with her young brothers on Christmas Eve, and her friend Honzas parents did not turn up either. And their form mistress Marie Svobodova, who has found a partner at last, is incapable of smoothing things out between her man-friend and her mother. The great expectations of Christmas Eve have collapsed for everyone. 8. For the First and Last Time Michael is preparing to sit for the entrance exams to Film College, but he is still not sure whether to go through this act of rebellion against his strong-minded father. His mother is supportive, but she has her own problem to solve how to free herself from her golden cage and start doing something meaningful with her life. Coincidences seem to be deciding on Susans life at this stage, so at least she need feel no self-reproach. 9. Into the Second Round The big school-leaving dance is a single-time event and nothing will ever delete the memories. The students are accompanied by their parents, and so Susan is fated to encounter Michaels mother and father. How will they react? Can they forget what happened between them? And how will Katka resolve her feelings of despair after she runs away from the gala event? But there are things one cannot run away from. Particularly now that she has fallen into the worst trap possible. 10. Worse Times Ahead? Michael must face the bitterest disappointment of his life, all the worse as he cannot even confide in his mother. Nobody can help him now. Just as nobody can help Katka, who is tumbling into an abyss and refuses help from those close to her. She is on her own now, as is Michael and also Susan, who runs away from home again. 11. The Last Bell Rings None of the firm rules and truths of childhood are valid any longer. Parents are no longer the example of virtue, wisdom and goodness; they are getting divorced, betraying each other and others, even those closest are capable of hurting each other in the worst manner possible. For Susan the good address of the villa quarter is no longer the idyllic place she had thought it to be. When she returns here now, she is another person. A mature girl who has learnt her lesson of what life is really like, with all its failures and cruelties. She is now even capable of looking Michael in the eyes and forgiving Katka; so perhaps she will become forgiving towards herself as well. 12. The Lies of New Year’s Eve The year is ending and a football match is to be held at the high school, for which last year’s graduates have arrived. Susan did not into medical school and is working as a hospital aide, Honza who is studying sociology and helping his grandfather at his fast food restaurant. Even Michael turns up, he came home from Sweden for the Christmas holidays. Nobody knows yet that he has returned for good and not with laurels. And of course there is Katka, who is repeating the final year and Honza has long been her boyfriend. They are all preparing to celebrate the last day of the year. In the event, the party takes a different course than planned and the young people’s fates get entwined into unexpected complications. 13. Empty Hearts Katka conscientiously tries to bring life back to normal, but she feels frustrated by her father and friends who are keeping an all-too-careful watch on her doings. She makes a big mistake when she decides to go to a big party at the Czernobyl Club. She has an unpleasant encounter there with Carrots and is only saved from his clutches by Bondy, a sympathetic boy with a ready fist. Susan is in for a cold shower too. She gets no welcome at the Filexi party, where she shone as a star last year. Moreover, she becomes a target of unpleasant jokes from a party of older men round Doctor Palous. Simone Koren gives birth prematurely to a baby boy, who spends weeks fighting to survive. 14. The Things that Didn’t Work Out Katka is quite bewitched by Bondy, totally infatuated. This boy doesn’t keep preaching and Katka’s life is suddenly ablaze with the colours and scents of adventure. Good old Honza is fading into the background, but Katka doesn’t have the courage to tell him the truth. At the hospital Susan meets Petr Koren again. Even though they both behave sensibly, it is obvious that neither of them has forgotten anything of what had been between them. 15. Dawn over the Pacific Katka has definitely lost her head. Only now does she know what love means, and she succumbs to Bondy just like she succumbed to drugs some time ago. Quite inconsiderate towards those around her, she leaves for a four days’ outing with Bondy without having told anyone of her plans. Erhart is in despair, he can’t even make himself be nice to his dear Jana, who has started feeling like a boring piece of inventory in their apartment. Honza is the only person who still wants to defend Katka’s actions. He is incapable of admitting even to himself that he has lost her. 16. The Shanghai Dragon Katka returns home after four days and is actually irked by the fact that her father has been dying of fear for her. She feels so strong and mature now, that she immediately accepts Bondy’s invitation to join him on a six-month tour of western Europe. She willingly gives up graduating, considers it to be an unimportant formality. Susan is asked out to dinner by Doctor Palous, but the surprise her mother comes up with upsets them both. Palous is actually Susan’s biological father. 17. The Last Supper Katka needs some money for her travels with Bondy, so she doesn’t hesitate to steal one of her father’s expensive cameras, and sells it. She no longer has consideration for anyone or anything. But Honza is incapable of giving her up and seeks any way at all to win her back. He has a crazy idea and installs a shining heart up high on the wall of her house. But his foot slips and he crashes down and kills himself. Michael has a much happier love affair with Danica, a Macedonian model. He has even managed to find an interesting job and finally feels he is a mature and successful young man. 18. Easter Honza’s fatal accident breaks Katka’s spirit. She locks herself away from everyone, refuses to speak even to Bondy. All joy in life is gone, she has lost her faith in the future. Peter is also fighting feelings of futility and despair, Simone has totally excluded him from her a little Simon’s life. Susan is slowly coming to terms with the fact that she has a father she never knew about – and who didn’t know about her. 19. Those Endless Shelves Katka refuses to go back to school, and starts working in a large supermarket. She wants to cut herself off from the past, get rid of the people who knew her and who are aware of her grave feelings of guilt. Michael wants to marry Danica, he feels independent and full of energy. Grandfather Opelik, on the other hand, has lost all meaning to life. He had been building up his small business for his grandson but since the boy’s death the old man has lost interest in everything. 20. A Step into a Void A single evening was enough to bring back to throbbing life what Peter and Susan had been spending a whole year in forgetting. They still love each other, and Peter now feels that all bonds to his family had been severed. Simone turned away from him and Michael has his own life, no longer do they need him. Katka’s wish to find a hiding place from her past unfortunately doesn’t work out. Hateful Carrots finds her and doesn’t hesitate to start blackmailing her. 21. The Last Straw Michael’s relationship with Danica has its problems too. She has a little boy, whose father absolutely refuses to give up Danica and his young son. In order to get Danica to return to him he arranges to have Michael kidnapped and imprisoned at a derelict farm somewhere in the mountains. By coincidence the gangsters carry off Michael and also his father. Katka is in a hopeless situation too, Carrots is forcing her to steal for him at the supermarket. 22. A Handful of Lavender Katka sees no way out of her desperate situation and tries to commit suicide. She survives, but is convinced that she will never escape the shadows of her past. When at lowest ebb she discovers that she still has real friends and a loving father. While Simone is desperately trying to find the money to pay the ransom for her husband and son, Peter and Michael manage to escape, but Michael is in very bad shape mentally. He is finding it impossible to come to terms with the fact that Danica has vanished from his life. Susan also has some hard times ahead – Peter is needed by his family again and she must go her own way.
SD | 22 x 54´ | © 2005, 2008
director(s): Karel Smyczek
producer(s): Czech Television
scriptwriter(s): Lucie Konášová
director of photography: Vladimír Holomek
cast: Anna Kulovaná, Přemysl Boublík, Milan Bahul, Pavel Trojan, Marta Issová, Jana Preissová, František Němec, Tomáš Hanák, Vilma Cibulková and others
rights available: TV, Video
original language: Czech
subtitles available: English (parts 1, 5)