Želary is a 2003 Czech

Cinema of the Czech Republic

The Czech Republic was a seedbed for many acclaimed film directors.Three Czech/Czechoslovak movies that won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film were The Shop on Main Street by Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos in 1965, Closely Watched Trains by Jiří Menzel in 1967 and...

/Slovak

Slovakia

The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...

 film directed by Ondřej Trojan

Ondrej Trojan

Ondřej Trojan is a Czech film producer, actor and film director. Two of the films he produced were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film : Divided We Fall and Želary , which he also directed...

, starring Anna Geislerová. The movie received a 2004 Academy Award nomination

Submissions for the 76th Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

The following 56 films, all from different countries, were submitted for the 76th Academy Awards in the category Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film which took place in 2004. The bolded titles were the five nominated films....

 in the Best Foreign Language Film

Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...

 category. It was produced by Barrandov Studios

Barrandov Studios

Barrandov Studios is a famous set of film studios in Prague, Czech Republic. It is the largest film studio in the country and one of the largest in Europe.Several of the movies filmed there won Academy Awards...

 in Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

.

Plot

The story begins in 1942, at the time where Europe was going through one of the worst moments of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. The Germans are throughout Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and the Gestapo

Gestapo

The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

 is the instrument to eliminate the people that are working in the resistance

Czech resistance to Nazi occupation

Czech resistance to German Nazi occupation during World War II is a scarcely documented subject, by and large a result of little formal resistance and an effective German policy that deterred acts of resistance or annihilated organizations of resistance...

. When a young resistance worker and medical student, Eliška, is on the brink of arrest, she is given new identity papers and sent to the country to marry a sawmill worker who has been in the hospital recovering from a near-fatal accident. They must learn to function as man and wife and confront difficulties from the German occupation, the village thug, and, worst of all, the brutal Red Army "liberators."

Location

The film was mostly shot on location in the Malá Fatra mountains in the Northwest region of the Slovak Republic.

Cast

Actor	Role
Anna Geislerová Anna Geislerová Anna Geislerová aka Aňa Geislerová is a Czech actress.Anna became well known for her role as Eliška/Hana in the 2003 movie Želary and as Anna in the 1999 movie Return of the Idiot...	Eliška/Hana
György Cserhalmi György Cserhalmi György Cserhalmi was born on February 17, 1948 in Budapest, Hungary. He is a Hungarian actor. He graduated from the Actors Academy in 1971. He is also the founder of the Labdater Theatre in the Globe cultural centre.-Employment:...	Joza
Jaroslava Adamová	Lucka
Miroslav Donutil Miroslav Donutil Miroslav Donutil is a Czech theatrical, film and television actor, born in Třebíč. Since 1978 when he appeared as Hloch in Čistá řeka, Donutil has three decades of film and TV appearances. He dubbed the voice of Kevin Costner and Gérard Depardieu - Career :Donutil grew up in Brno...	priest
Jaroslav Dušek	teacher Tkáč
Iva Bittová Iva Bittová Iva Bittová is a Czech avant-garde violinist, singer and composer. She began her career as an actress in the mid 1970s, appearing in several Czech feature films, but switched to playing violin and singing in the early 1980s. She started recording in 1986 and by 1990 her unique vocal and...	Žeňa
Ivan Trojan Ivan Trojan Ivan Trojan is a Czech actor.He graduated from the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague in 1988 and Realistické divadlo Zdeňka Nejedlého in Prague-Smíchov. In 1992 he moved to Divadlo na Vinohradech...	Richard
Jan Hrušínský Jan Hrušínský Jan Hrušínský is a Czech actor. He has appeared in 56 films and television shows since 1970. He starred in the 1974 film Kdo hledá zlaté dno, which was entered into the 25th Berlin International Film Festival....	Slávek
Anna Vertelárová	Helenka
Tomás Zatecka	Lipka
Ondřej Koval	Michal Kutina
Tatiana Vajdová	Anna Kutinová
František Velecký František Velecký František Velecký was a Slovak actor.Velecký was a very particular figure of Slovak acting, being antipode to venerated mainstream showbiz celebrities. Although he had never received any formal training he managed to earn a great respect of both filmmakers and audience members...	old Kutina
Viera Pavlíková	old Kutinová
Juraj Hrčka	Vojta Juriga