Kolya

Released 1996
Stars Zdenek Sverak, Andrej Chalimon, Libuse Safrankova
Directed by Jan Sverak
 
This is probably my second favorite movie of all time.

Franta Louka is a concert cellist in Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia, a confirmed bachelor and lady's man. Having lost his place in the state orchestra, he must make ends meet by playing at funerals and painting tombstones. He has run up a large debt, and, when his friend suggests a scheme for making a lot of money by marrying a Russian woman so she can get her Czech papers, he reluctantly agrees. She takes advantage of the situation to emigrate to West Germany to her lover, and she leaves her five-year-old son with his grandmother. I don't want to say much more about the plot than that.

Summary by Bill Alward