Young Ondra has asthma and so his parents throw away his favourite toy: a musty old stuffed bear named Kooky. That night Ondra dreams that Kooky is determined to find his way back home from the dump. In the boy's fantasy, the bear gets lost in a forest occupied by strange animals and remarkable beings that he never heard of while living on the toy shelf in Ondra's room. And of course even in this small imaginary world, true good exists as does real evil, which Kooky must face up to in order to become a real hero.
Practical Effects
Actual weathered puppets shot outdoors—no green screen, just magic
Direction
Svěrák Sr. and Jr. family collaboration with real emotional DNA
Cinematography
Mossy Czech forests that feel ancient and secretly watching
Director
Jan Svěrák
Zdeněk Svěrák
Hergot (voice)
Jiří Lábus
pytlík Zapík (voice)
Petr Čtvrtníček
pytlík Vidlička (voice)
Ondřej Vetchý
Dubánek (voice)
Pavel Liška
Rohánek (voice)
Jiří Schmitzer
Plazivec (voice)
Kristýna Badinková Nováková
Máma
Václav Postránecký
Hospodský (voice)
Miroslav Táborský
Vodák (voice)
Oldřich Kaiser
bezdomovec
Jiří Macháček
Anuska
Filip Čapka
Táta
Vasil Fridrich
Záchranár
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Director Jan Svěrák shot the forest scenes first, then built the puppet story around what nature provided—real rain, real mud, real exhausted puppeteers.
This is essentially Czech Toy Story by way of Jan Švankmajer—Svěrák's father Zdeněk (Kolya) wrote and voices Hergot, making this a three-generation family project with Ondřej playing Ondra.
CZ
