Deceptively uplifting story set in post-Communist Prague about how a five-year-old Russian boy wins over a footloose, middle-aged Czech cellist, despite their language, culture, history and age barriers.

When Louka enters a marriage of convenience with a Russian woman she disppears leaving her young son Kolya alone with her new husband. Even this grouchy old womaniser is not immune to the boy's tears when he appears head-bowed on his doorstep. In spite of himself, he takes the boy in.

Set against the architecturally impressive back-drop of a modernising Prague, and its more crumbly rural environs, the friendship develops at a gentle pace and with touching humour. The beauty of director Jan Sverak's film is that it works at both a human and, more subtly, a political level.

Kolya won a best Foreign Language Film Oscar and deservedly so.