Kolya

(1996)

★ 7.4 IMDb · 220 votes

Genres: Drama, Comedy

Year: 1996

Runtime: 105 мин

Country: Czech Republic, United Kingdom

Director: Jan Svěrák

Cast: Zdeněk Svěrák, Андрей Халимон, Либуше Шафранкова, Ондржей Ветчи, Stella Zázvorková, Ladislav Smoljak, Ирина Безрукова, Сильвия Сувадова, Лилиан Малкина, Karel Heřmánek

Plot

After a fictitious marriage with a Russian emigrant, Cellisten Louka, a Czech man, must suddenly take responsibility for her son. However, it’s not long before the communication barrier is broken between the two new family members.

Franta Louka is a concert cellist in Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia, a confirmed bachelor and a lady's man. Having lost his place in the state orchestra, he must make ends meet by playing at funerals and painting tombstones. But he has run up a large debt, and when his friend, the grave-digger Mr. Broz, suggests a scheme for making a lot of money by marrying a Russian woman so that she can get her Czech papers, he reluctantly agrees. She takes advantage of the situation to emigrate to West Germany, to her lover; and leaves her five-year-old son with his grandmother; when the grandmother dies, Kolya must come and live with his stepfather - Louka.