This week's guide to English-friendly Czech cinema and streaming

Now playing in local cinemas, the Czech co-production Ungrateful Beings offers a quietly unsettling portrait of a family pushed to its limits, as a father struggles to cope with his teenage daughter’s battle with anorexia. Dexter Franc stars alongside Irish actor Barry Ward, who learned some Czech for the role.

The Hollywood Reporter calls the film “a stealthy and surprising domestic portrait,” one that evolves beyond its premise into a more complex and unpredictable character study. Ungrateful Beings screens with English subtitles at Kino Světozor on March 30; keep an eye out for future English-friendly showings.

British director Harry Lighton’s Pillion offers a disarmingly frank and often darkly funny look at an unconventional dominant-submissive relationship between two mismatched men, anchored by standout performances from Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling.

The Prague Reporter writes that the film “scores points for its rugged authenticity and strong central performances.” Pillion is now playing in English across Prague cinemas.

Czech comedy legend Zdeněk Svěrák, one of the most iconic figures of Czech comedy, celebrated his 90th birthday yesterday. His 1974 film Joachim, Put Him into the Machine!, which he co-wrote and co-stars in, helped define a new wave of character-driven humor that would become a cornerstone of satirical Czech cinema during normalization.

Joachim, Put Him into the Machine! tells the story of a shy young man who tries to structure his life according to a computer-generated algorithm of lucky and unlucky days. Blending absurdity with everyday anxieties, it remains one of Svěrák’s most beloved early works. In Czechia, the film is streaming with English subtitles on KVIFF.TV.