Francin, manager of a small-town brewery, has a charming wife whose abundant blonde locks are an adornment to the town. Maryska looks ethereal but loves meat and beer, while Francin is an ascetic. The strict members of the brewery board of directors come to audit the accounts, but are diverted from concentrating on Francin’s detailed reports by Maryska, who has organized a pig-killing feast and is ably assisting the butcher. When she invites the old curmudgeons on the board to enjoy the fresh pork, they are too happy to agree. Francin doesn’t know whether he is going to get a permanent contract. To make things worse his brother Pepin – eccentric, noisy and garrulous – turns up on an indefinite visit.

A manifesto of sorts for the Czech New Wave, this five-part anthology shows off the breadth of expression and the versatility of the movement’s directors. Based on stories by the legendary writer Bohumil Hrabal, the shorts range from the surreally chilling to the caustically observant to the casually romantic, but all have a cutting, wily view of the world.

Seven college kids take a shortcut on their way to a party and unfortunately end up in Wormwood – a “lost” town in the middle of nowhere. They find something strange and sinister happening there – bones and weird decorations line Main Street. The cause: local Wormwood legend says on All Hallows Eve one hundred years ago, a crazed man tortured the youngsters in town and then cut off their heads. In retaliation, the townspeople killed him by cutting off his head. Seeking revenge every seven years, he returns and takes seven heads from children in the town. Now the seven visitors find themselves hunted one by one as the Headless Horseman claims his due.