, 1h45 Directed byJan Svěrák OriginRepublique tcheque GenresDrama, Comedy, Musical ThemesFilms about music and musicians, Musical films ActorsZdeněk Svěrák, Libuše Šafránková, Stella Zázvorková, Ladislav Smoljak, Silvia Šuvadová, Nikola Hejko Roles Paša Rating76% The film begins in 1988 as the Soviet bloc is beginning to disintegrate. František Louka, a middle-aged Czech man dedicated to bachelorhood and the pursuit of women, is a concert cellist struggling to eke out a living by playing funerals at the Prague crematorium. He has lost his previous job at the Czech Philharmonic, having been half-accidentally blacklisted as "politically unreliable" by the authorities. A friend offers him a chance to earn a great deal of money through a sham marriage to a Russian woman to enable her to stay in Czechoslovakia. The woman then uses her new citizenship to emigrate to West Germany, where her boyfriend lives.