Men around the world are experimenting with one of the boldest projects of the century — getting in touch with the feminine side of their personalities. In Jan Sverak's Kolya, Frantisek is a cellist who used to play with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and has been reduced in hard times to playing for funerals at the Prague crematorium. It is 1989 and the Russians are occupying the city. However, Frantisek doesn't pay much attention to politics. A confirmed bachelor, he's content to have an occasional affair. But for the money to get out of debt, he reluctantly agrees to an arranged marriage with a Russian woman who needs Czech papers. When the bride runs off to Germany to be with her lover, the cellist is stuck with her five-year-old son Kolya.

The middle-aged man and the little boy are separated by generational, ethnic, and language barriers. But slowly Kolya wins his way into Frantisek's heart. The bachelor becomes a nurturing man. Zdenek Sverak, who wrote the screenplay and plays the cellist, has stated, "I think we need films about feeling and compassion. I liked the idea of a man who is under all sorts of pressures and yet he listens to his heart."

Let Kolya work its magic upon your heart. This drama won an Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film of 1996.