Greatest Eastern European Directors
These are the top directors from Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, and the former countries of Yugoslavia.
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After studying at the Institute of Industrial Arts and the Marionette Faculty of the Prague Academy of Fine Arts in the 1950s, Jan Svankmajer started working as a theatre director, chiefly in association with the Theatre of Masks and the Black Theatre. He first experimented with film-making after becoming involved with the multimedium productions of Prague's Lanterna Magika Theatre. He began making short films in 1964, and continued working in the same medium for over twenty years, when he finally achieved his long-held ambition to make a feature film based on Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (Alice (1988)). He has also exhibited his drawings, collages and 'tactile sculptures', many of which were produced in the mid-1970s, when he was temporarily banned from film-making by the Czech authorities. He has been a card-carrying member of the Prague Surrealist Group since 1969.- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Roman Polanski is a Polish film director, producer, writer and actor. Having made films in Poland, Britain, France and the USA, he is considered one of the few truly international filmmakers. Roman Polanski was born in Paris in 1933.
His parents returned to Poland from France in 1936, three years before World War II began. On Germany's invasion in 1939, as a family of mostly Jewish heritage, they were all sent to the Krakow ghetto. His parents were then captured and sent to two different concentration camps: His father to Mauthausen-Gusen in Austria, where he survived the war, and his mother to Auschwitz where she was murdered. Roman witnessed his father's capture and then, at only 7, managed to escape the ghetto and survive the war, at first wandering through the Polish countryside and pretending to be a Roman-Catholic kid visiting his relatives. Although this saved his life, he was severely mistreated suffering nearly fatal beating which left him with a fractured skull.
Local people usually ignored the cinemas where German films were shown, but Polanski seemed little concerned by the propaganda and often went to the movies. As the war progressed, Poland became increasingly war-torn and he lived his life as a tramp, hiding in barns and forests, eating whatever he could steal or find. Still under 12 years old, he encountered some Nazi soldiers who forced him to hold targets while they shot at them. At the war's end in 1945, he reunited with his father who sent him to a technical school, but young Polanski seemed to have already chosen another career. In the 1950s, he took up acting, appearing in Andrzej Wajda's A Generation (1955) before studying at the Lodz Film School. His early shorts such as Two Men and a Wardrobe (1958), Le gros et le maigre (1961) and Mammals (1962), showed his taste for black humor and interest in bizarre human relationships. His feature debut, Knife in the Water (1962), was one of the first Polish post-war films not associated with the war theme. It was also the first movie from Poland to get an Oscar nomination for best foreign film. Though already a major Polish filmmaker, Polanski chose to leave the country and headed to France. While down-and-out in Paris, he befriended young scriptwriter, Gérard Brach, who eventually became his long-time collaborator. The next two films, Repulsion (1965) and Cul-de-sac (1966), made in England and co-written by Brach, won respectively Silver and then Golden Bear awards at the Berlin International Film Festival. In 1968, Polanski went to Hollywood, where he made the psychological thriller, Rosemary's Baby (1968). However, after the brutal murder of his wife, Sharon Tate, by the Manson Family in 1969, the director decided to return to Europe. In 1974, he again made a US release - it was Chinatown (1974).
It seemed the beginning of a promising Hollywood career, but after his conviction for the sodomy of a 13-year old girl, Polanski fled from he USA to avoid prison. After Tess (1979), which was awarded several Oscars and Cesars, his works in 1980s and 1990s became intermittent and rarely approached the caliber of his earlier films. It wasn't until The Pianist (2002) that Polanski came back to full form. For that movie, he won nearly all the most important film awards, including the Oscar for Best Director, Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or, the BAFTA and Cesar Award.
He still likes to act in the films of other directors, sometimes with interesting results, as in A Pure Formality (1994).- Writer
- Director
- Actor
Krzysztof Kieslowski graduated from Lódz Film School in 1969, and became a documentary, TV and feature film director and scriptwriter. Before making his first film for TV, Przejscie podziemne (1974) (The Underground Passage), he made a number of short documentaries. His next TV title, Personnel (1975) (The Staff), took the Grand Prix at Mannheim Film Festival. His first full-length feature was The Scar (1976) (The Scar). In 1978 he made the famous documentary From a Night Porter's Point of View (1979) (Night Porter's Point of View), and in 1979 - a feature Camera Buff (1979) (Camera Buff), which was acclaimed in Poland and abroad. Everything he did from that point was of highest artistic quality.- Director
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- Actor
Milos Forman was born Jan Tomas Forman in Caslav, Czechoslovakia, to Anna (Svabova), who ran a summer hotel, and Rudolf Forman, a professor. During World War II, his parents were taken away by the Nazis, after being accused of participating in the underground resistance. His father died in Mittelbau-Dora, a sub camp of Buchenwald, and his mother died in Auschwitz, at which Milos became an orphan very early on. He studied screen-writing at the Prague Film Academy (F.A.M.U.). In his Czechoslovakian films, Black Peter (1964), Loves of a Blonde (1965), and The Firemen's Ball (1967), he created his own style of comedy. During the invasion of his country by the troops of the Warsaw pact in the summer of 1968, to stop the Prague spring, he left Europe for the United States. In spite of difficulties, he filmed Taking Off (1971) there and achieved his fame later with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) adapted from the novel of Ken Kesey, which won five Oscars, including one for best direction. Other important films of Milos Forman were the musical Hair (1979) and his biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Amadeus (1984), which won eight Oscars.- Director
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- Actor
István Szabó was the first director to bring home to Hungary the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. The movie receiving the award was his 1981 film Mephisto. In January 2006, it became public that he had been an agent of the III/III department, a former communist agency of interior intelligence. After the revolution in 1956, he was blackmailed and forced to cooperate, though later he was considered willingly cooperative. Allegedly, he wrote reports about fellow Hungarian directors, actors, and actresses such as Miklós Jancsó, Mari Töröcsik, Károly Mécs. Szabó has never denied the charges and considers his agent work heroic and needful, claiming he saved the life of a friend sentenced to death for his involvement in the revolution of 1956.- Actor
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Jirí Menzel was born on 23 February 1938 in Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]. He was an actor and director, known for Closely Watched Trains (1966), I Served the King of England (2006) and Larks on a String (1969). He was married to Olga Menzelová-Kelymanová. He died on 5 September 2020 in Prague, Czech Republic.- Director
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- Producer
Andrzej Wajda is an Academy Award-winning director. He is the most prominent filmmaker in Poland known for The Promised Land (1975), Man of Iron (1981), and Katyn (2007).
He was Born on March 6, 1926, in Suwalki, Poland. His mother, Aniela Wajda, was a teacher at a Ukrainian school. His father, Jakub Wajda, was a captain in the Polish infantry. Wajda described his childhood as a happy pastoral country life before the Second World War. In 1939, Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany and Soviet Union. In 1940, Wajda's father was killed by Stalin's agents in the Katyn massacre.
Young Wajda survived the Second World War with his mother and his brother in Nazi-occupied Poland. In 1942, Wajda joined the Polish resistance and served in the Armia Krajowa until the war ended in 1945. In 1946 he moved to Kraków. There Wajda went to Academy of Fine Arts. He studied painting, particularly the impressionist and post-impressionist painting, and was especially fond of Paul Cezanne. From 1950-1954 he studied film directing at the High Film School in Lódz under directors Jerzy Toeplitz and Aleksander Ford. Later, Wajda described the influential and eye-opening experience from seeing French avant-garde films, like Ballet mécanique (1924) by artist-director Fernand Léger.
In 1955 he made his debut as director of full-length A Generation (1955), about the generation of youth coming of age during the Nazi occupation of Poland. His award-winning Kanal (1957) and Ashes and Diamonds (1958) concluded the trilogy about life in Poland during WWII. Although he was under pressure from the Soviet-dominated Polish authorities, Wajda positioned himself as an artist who was above the conflict. He still managed to show the undeclared civil war between two anti-Nazi Polish forces, which were divided by political ideology: the Polish communists and the partisans - folk heroes of the Home Army.
His Oscar-nominated The Promised Land (1975) was a work of multi-layered allegory and Symbolism. Wajda's witty depiction of the 19th century capitalism in Poland actually alluded to the contemporary Communist politics. The shooting of workers in the final scenes was actually unmasking of the official politics of killing workers in the Soviet Union in 1962, under Nikita Khrushchev, and in Poland a few years later. The story of a film student who traces the life of defamed "hero" in Man of Marble (1977) was a deconstruction of the false impressions that official propaganda was using to brainwash the public. The same main characters in Man of Iron (1981) continued unmasking the Communist regime's manipulations against working class people. In 1981, Wajda joined the "Solidarity" labor movement of Lech Walesa.
From 1989 to 1991 Wajda was elected Senator of the Republic of Poland. From 1992 to 1994 he was Member of Presidential Council for Culture. In 1994 he founded the Center of Japanese Art and Technology in Kraków, and was awarded the Order of Rising Sun in Japan (1995). Wajda was President of Polish Film Association (1978-1983). He was Member of "Solidarity" Lech Walesa Council (1981-1989). He won an honorary Oscar (2000) for his contribution to cinema, and an honorary Golden Bear (2006) at the Berlin Film Festival.
Wajda's Katyn (2007) was nominated for Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year in 2008, and received many other awards and nominations. The film shows historic events in Katyn during WWII, where Wajda's father was among thousands of Polish officers killed by Soviet communists under the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin. Wajda's film was well received by the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, who initially opened the facts about Katyn to help people understand each other and overcome the tragic past.
"We never hoped to live to see the fall of the Soviet Union, to see Poland as a free country", said Andrzej Wajda.- Producer
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Béla Tarr was born on 21 July 1955 in Pécs, Hungary. He is a producer and director, known for Werckmeister Harmonies (2000), The Turin Horse (2011) and Satantango (1994). He is married to Ágnes Hranitzky.- Director
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- Producer
Having graduated from FAMU in Prague film (1971), Agnieszka Holland returned to Poland and began her film career working with Krzysztof Zanussi as assistant director, and Andrzej Wajda as her mentor. Her first feature film was PROVINCIAL ACTORS (1978), one of the flagship pictures of the "cinema of moral disquiet" and the winner of the International Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1980. Subsequently, she made the films FEVER (1980) and THE LONELY WOMAN (1981). In 1981, just before the declaration of the state of emergency in Poland, Agnieszka Holland emigrated to France.
She directed ANGRY HARVEST (1985) which was nominated for a foreign-language Oscar. Her film EUROPA EUROPA (1990) also received a U.S. Academy Award nomination (best screenplay) and IN DARKNESS (2011) was again nominated as best foreign-language film. She also collaborated with her friend Krzysztof Kieslowski on the screenplay of his trilogy, THREE COLOURS (1993).
Holland's other films include TO KILL A PRIEST (1988), OLIVIER, OLIVIER (1992), THE SECRET GARDEN (1993), TOTAL ECLIPSE (1995), WASHINGTON SQUARE (1997), THE THIRD MIRACLE (1999), SHOT IN THE HEART (2001), JULIE WALKING HOME (2001), COPYING BEETHOVEN (2006), IN DARKNESS (2011), BURNING BUSH (2013), SPOOR (2017), MR. JONES (2019) and CHARLATAN (2020). She also directed several episodes of many notable TV series, including THE WIRE, JAG, COLD CASE, TREME (for the pilot of the latter she was nominated for an Emmy) and HOUSE OF CARDS. Agnieszka Holland has also written or co-written screenplays for films made by other directors and directed plays for Polish television. She was elected chairwoman of the Board of the European Film Academy in 2014 and was elected as its President in 2021.- Director
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Dusan Makavejev is the premier figure in Yugoslavian film history; his films are deeply rooted in his nation's painful postwar experiences and draw on important Yugoslavian cinematic and cultural models. Makavejev's work has violated many political and sexual taboos and invited censorship in dozens of nations. In the 1950s, after studying psychology at Belgrade University, Makavejev became involved in the activities of various film societies and festivals and studied direction at the Academy for Radio, Television and Film. As early as 1953, he began making short films and documentaries and would work in various capacities at both the Zagreb and Avala studios during the late 50s and early 60s. The documentary impulse remains powerful in Makavejev's work, as does the tendency to intercut undigested segments from other films into longer works.
Makavejev enjoyed great critical success with his first three features, Man Is Not a Bird (1965), "Love Affair" (1967) and Innocence Unprotected (1968). Highly allegorical and relying on techniques derived from Brecht and influenced by Godard, these films were sardonic and anarchistic views of Eastern European state socialist milieus.
Much of Makavejev's work has been uncompromisingly experimental as well as politically outrageous. WR: Mysteries of the Organism (1971) is the best example of this combination and is the director's most influential work to date. Much of the film is composed of a documentary Makavejev researched in the late 1960s while in the US on a Ford Foundation grant and which was eventually financed by German TV. A witty, passionate, and often rambling account of pioneering psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich and his American disciples, the material is intercut with a fictitious political-sexual allegory set in contemporary Belgrade. The film was instantly banned in Yugoslavia and made Makavejev persona non grata in his native country until the late 1980s.
Sweet Movie (1974) was made in Canadian exile, with some production resources furnished by the National Film Board of Canada. Also a disjointed, two-part narrative, it again focuses on radical techniques in sexual psychotherapy, here played out rather than verbalized. Intertwined is yet another acidic, allegorical fable of the decay of Yugoslavia's socialist legacy. Extremely violent and sexually explicit, "Sweet Movie" was dismissed (and censored) as pornography in many countries, and added to Makavejev's reputation as a "filmmaker maudit."
Montenegro (1981) has been Makavejev's greatest financial success to date. Political commentary and formal experimentation are subordinated to narrative drive in this story of a housewife (Susan Anspach) who grapples with sexual liberation and fails.
The Coca-Cola Kid (1985), Makavejev's second major international co-production, was marred by on-set squabbles between actors, and the rejection of Makavejev's intriguing plan to use a long reel of multilingual Coca-Cola commercials as a narrative structuring device. What emerged was a genuinely erotic film which takes a quirky, satiric view both of its Australian setting and the international business world.
Makavejev's long exile from his homeland ended in 1988 with the release of Manifesto (1988), a Ruritanian political farce mostly shot in Yugoslavia. Although the film marks the most disciplined, traditional storytelling of Makavejev's career, it has seen only limited bookings in the US. Also little seen was his follow-up Gorilla Bathes at Noon (1993), a political comedy based on the adventures of a Russian soldier as he wanders around Berlin.
Profession(s): director, screenwriter, professor, essayist Sometimes Credited As: Sam Rotterdam
Family wife: Bojana Marijan (married in 1964; has worked with Makavejev)
Education Academy of Theater, Radio, Film and Television Belgrade, Yugoslavia Belgrade University Belgrade, Yugoslavia psychology 1955.- Writer
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- Art Director
A graduate of Prague's School of Arts and Crafts, in 1936 he created a puppet theater, which was disbanded after the outbreak of WWII. During the war he designed stage sets and illustrated children's books. In 1945 he set up an animation unit with several collaborators at the Prague film studio; they called the unit "Trick Brothers." Trnka specialized in puppet animation, a traditional Czech art form, of which he became the undisputed master. He also created animated cartoons, but it was his puppet animation that made him an internationally recognized artist and the winner of film festival awards at Venice and elsewhere. He wrote the scripts for most of his own films.- Director
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- Editor
Márta Mészáros was born on 19 September 1931 in Budapest, Hungary. She is a director and writer, known for Adoption (1975), Diary for My Children (1984) and Diary for My Lovers (1987). She was previously married to Miklós Jancsó, Laszlo Karda and Jan Nowicki.- Director
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- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Ján Kadár was born on 1 April 1918 in Budapest, Austria-Hungary [now Hungary]. He was a director and writer, known for The Shop on Main Street (1965), Smrt si ríká Engelchen (1963) and Obzalovaný (1964). He died on 1 June 1979 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
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Born in Lódz, Poland, in 1938. Director, playwright, scriptwriter, and actor. Graduated in ethnology, literature and history from Warsaw University in 1959. Graduated from Lódz Film Academy in directing in 1962. Feature debut: _Identification Marks - None_ (Rysopis, 1964, scr., dir, act.), awarded in Warsaw 1964 and Arnhem 1965. Other films: _Walkover_ (Walkower, 1965, scr., act.), awarded in Mannheim; _The Barrier_ (Bariera, 1966, scr.), awarded in Bergamo 1966 and Valladolid 1968; _Le Depart_ (1967, scr., belg. prod.), Grand Prix in Wets Berlin); _Dialogue 20-40-60_ (Dialog 20-40-60, 1968, scr. - Polish part of "The Twenty Years Olds", czech. prod.); _Hands Up!_ (Rece do gory!, 1967)- Director
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Born in 1939 in Warsaw, Poland. Documentary and feature film director. Studied physics at Warsaw University and philosophy at Jagiellonian University in Cracow. Graduated from Lodz Film Academy in 1966. Amateur film maker. His school diploma film 'Death of a Provincial' (Smierc prowincjala (1968)) won an awards in Venice, Mannheim, Valladolid and Moscow in 1967. Other early films made for TV include: 'Next Door' (_Za sciana (1971)_), Grand Prix in San Remo; 'Hypothesis' (Hipoteza (1973)).
Scriptwriter or co-writer of all of his TV and cinema films. Other early feature films: 'Structure of a Crystal' (The Structure of Crystal (1969)), which won in Mar del Plata 1970; 'Family Life' (Zycie rodzinne (1971)), which won in Chicago 1971, Valladolid 1972 and Colombo 1973; 'Illumination' (The Illumination (1973)), Grand Prix in Locarno 1973, award in Gdansk 1974; 'Quarterly Balance' (A Woman's Decision (1975)); 'Camouflage' (Camouflage (1977)), Spiral (The Spiral (1978)).- Director
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- Animation Department
Born in Kwilcz, Poland, Walerian Borowczyk trained as a painter and lithographer, winning Poland's National Prize in 1953. He began his film career as a film poster designer, then started making short animated films in the late 1950s. Moving to France in the early 1960s, he gained a reputation as a leading animator before switching to live-action features, which have become increasingly controversial due to their explicitly erotic and sensational content.- Director
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Miklos Jancsó was born in 1921 in Vac, Hungary. His mother Angela Poparada was Romanian and his father Sandor Jancsó Hungarian. Jancsó received a degree in Law from the University of Cluj-Napoca in 1944. After fighting in WWII and a brief period as a POW, he chose to join the Film and Theater Academy in Budapest, and graduated with a diploma in Film Directing in 1950. His fifth feature film The Round-Up (1966) was a huge hit domestically and internationally and is often considered a significant work of world cinema. Hungarian film critic Zoltan Fabri called it "perhaps the best Hungarian film ever made." Film critic Derek Malcolm included the film in his list of the 100 greatest films ever made. In Hungary, it was seen by over a million people (in a country with a population of 10 million). His next film The Red and the White (1967) became Jancsó's biggest success internationally. It won for example the 'Best Foreign Film' award from the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics. In his following films he developed a personal style of historical analysis using complex camera movements, dance and popular songs, creating his own cinematic style he called "political musical". The long takes became a trademark of Jancsó, so for example the 80-minute long Winter Wind (1969) consists of only 12 shots. Jancsó received the 'Best Director' award at the Cannes Film Festival 1972 for the film Red Psalm (1972). During the 1970s, Jancsó divided his time between Italy and Hungary and made a number of films in Italy, the best known of which is Private Vices, Public Virtues (1976). At that time, his films Hungarian Rhapsody (1979) and Allegro barbaro (1979) were the most expensive to have been produced in Hungary, but the critical reaction was muted. Jancsó was awarded the Career Golden Lion at the Venice Film festival in 1990. After little success and a long break Jancsó returned with The Lord's Lantern in Budapest (1998), which proved to a be a surprising comeback for the director. This success led to a succession of 5 more Pepe (Zoltán Mucsi) and Kapa (Péter Scherer) films, the last in 2006. Jancsó also cemented his reputation by making appearances in a number of films, for example as himself in his Pepe and Kapa films and in guest roles in works by up-and-coming Hungarian directors. Jancsó died of lung cancer on 31 January 2014, aged 92. Fellow Hungarian director Béla Tarr called Jancsó "the greatest Hungarian film director of all time" and acknowledged Jancsó's influence on his own work.- Director
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Jaromil Jires was born on 10 December 1935 in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia [now Slovak Republic]. He was a director and writer, known for The Joke (1969), Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970) and ...a pozdravuji vlastovky (1972). He died on 26 October 2001 in Prague, Czech Republic.- Director
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- Actress
Vera Chytilová was born on February 2, 1929, in Ostrava, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic). She studied philosophy and architecture in Brno for two years, then worked as a technical draftsman, a designer, a fashion model, a photo re-toucher, then worked as a clapper girl for Barrandov Film Studios in Prague. There she continued as a writer, actress, and assistant director.
She was denied a scholarship, or even a recommendation from Barrandov, but she took the admissions tests at FAMU and was accepted. From 1957-1962 she studied film directing under Otakar Vávra, who also taught Jirí Menzel, Milos Forman, Jan Nemec, and Ivan Passer. In 1962 she graduated as director from Film Academy (FAMU) in Prague. Her graduation film 'Strop' (Ceiling 1962) and the following film 'Pytel blech' (A Bagful of Fleas 1963) were "staged" improvisations with non-actors. In 1966 Chytilova and her husband, 'Jaroslav Kucera', made a witty surrealist comedy Daisies (1966), which was immediately banned, but then was released in 1967, and won the Grand Prix at the Bergamo Film Festival. She remained in Czechoslovakia after the events of 1968, when her colleagues Milos Forman, Jan Nemec, and Ivan Passer emigrated. Her films were often "shelved" for reasons of political censorship. For six years Chytilova was banned from making films. In 1976 she wrote a letter of complaint to President Gustav Husak, describing her artistic position. After some behind-the-scenes influence by her supporters, Chytilova was allowed to make a low-budget Hra o jablko (1977), which won a Silver Hugo at Chicago Film Festival.
Chytilova belongs among the foremost directors of the 1960's Czech New Wave, which was influenced by both the French New Wave and Italian Neo-Realism. Her films were acclaimed for visual experimentation and for bold unmasking of the moral problems of contemporary society. Her art belongs to what Sergei Eisenstein described as "intellectual cinema", that embraces the mix of "avant-garde", "cinema verite", "formalism", "feminism", or "happening" and, with a good deal of humor, it spreads beyond definitions. Chytilova's films often present a multi-layered plethora of visual associations that encourages the viewer to make active interpretations. She survived through the political turbulences in Czechoslovakia and has been a highly original and uncompromising filmmaker.- Director
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A Serbian film director. Born in 1954 in Sarajevo. Graduated in film directing at the prestigious Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague in 1978. During his studies, he was awarded several times for his short movies including Guernica (1978), which took first prize at the Student's Film Festival in Karlovy Vary. After graduation, he directed several TV movies in his hometown, Sarajevo. In collaboration with the screenwriter Abdulah Sidran in 1981, he made the successful feature debut Do You Remember Dolly Bell? (1981) which won the Silver Lion for best first feature at the Venice Film Festival. Their subsequent work, human political drama When Father Was Away on Business (1985) unanimously won top prize at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival as well as FIPRESCI prize and was nominated for the Best Foreign Language film Oscar. In 1989 he won the Best Director award at Cannes for Time of the Gypsies (1988), a film about the life of a gypsy family in Yugoslavia scripted by Gordan Mihic. His first English language movie, Arizona Dream (1993) starring Johnny Depp, Jerry Lewis and Faye Dunaway and scripted by his USA student, David Atkins was awarded the Silver Bear at the 1993 Berlin Film Festival. Underground (1995), a bitter surrealistic comedy about the Balkans, scripted by Dusan Kovacevic, won him a second Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1995.- Writer
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Karel Zeman was a Czech film director, screenwriter, and animator. He is primarily remembered for creating fantasy and science fiction films which combined live-action and animation.
In 1910, Zeman was born in the village of Ostromer in Austria-Hungary. The village is located near the town of Nova Paka, whose main tourist attraction is an abandoned monastery of Minims.
Zeman originally pursued a business education in the town of Kolin. In the 1920s, he studied advertising in France. He remained in France until 1936, working at an advertising studio in Marseilles. His first experience with animation was creating an animated advertisement for soap.
In the late 1930s, Zeman returned to Czechoslovakia, where he continued working in advertising. He created advertisements for companies such as Bata and Tatra. In 1939, Zeman attempted to migrate to Casablanca to avoid the poor living conditions in the German-occupied Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. He was soon barred from migrating.
During World War II, Zeman became the advertising head of advertisement at Dum Sluzeb in the city of Brno. He participated in a window-dressing competition there, which his won. Film director Elmar Klos (1910-1993) filmed a newsreel about the competition and became acquainted with Zeman. Klos offered Zeman work at an animation studio located in Zlin. Zeman accepted the business proposal in 1943.
Zeman started working as an assistant animator under veteran animator Hermina Tyrlova (1900-1993), who would eventually be nicknamed "the mother of Czech animation". In 1945, Zeman became the head of the animation's studio, stop-motion animation production group. He started work on his first short film "A Christmas Dream", which combined live-action with puppet animation. The plot involved a dream about toys coming to life.
In 1946, Zeman introduced a series of short films featuring a puppet called Mr. Prokouk. The series gained a fan following. In 1948, Zeman completed the short film "Inspiration", as an experiment in using glass in animation productions. In 1950, Zeman completed a half-hour film called "Kral Lavra" (King Lavra), an adaptation of a satirical poem by Karel Havlicek Borovsky (1821-1856), The film depicted the legend of Labraid Loingsech, High King of Ireland and was met with critical success. Zeman won a National Award with this film.
In 1952, Zeman created his first feature film "The Treasure of Bird Island", adapting a Persian fairy tale. He used several experimental techniques in animation. His next film was "Journey to the Beginning of Time" (1955), in which he animated many prehistoric animals. It was his first film to have an international release. Zeman worked on 8 other feature films between 1958 and 1980, as well as a large number of short films. He was one of Czechoslovakia's most famed animators.
Zeman retired in 1980, at the age of 70. He had been working as a director for 34 years at that point. He died of natural causes in April 1989, about 7 months before the Velvet Revolution and the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia. He was 78-years-old.
Zeman has been called as one of the 20th century's most innovative and influential animators. He has been cited as an influence by (among others) Wes Anderson, Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, and Jan Svankmajer.- Director
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Ivan Passer was one of the key authors of the "new wave" of Czech cinema, a group of young people who forged an energetic and transgressive film movement in the 1960s, breaking away from the precepts of hard socialist realism. Passer was not only the author of the scenarios of his own films, but he also worked on the scripts of the first four motion pictures made by his countryman, friend and colleague Milos Forman: "Konkurs" (1963), "Black Petr" ( 1964), "Loves of a Blonde" (1965) and "The Firemen's Ball" (1967).
Passer was born in Prague, the son of Marianna (Mandelíková) and Alois Passer. He was the grandson of a silent movie screenwriter. Ivan's parents were persecuted by the Nazis for their Jewish heritage. Ivan was a rebel boy, sent to a boarding school where he became friends with Milos. Together they went to study cinema at the FAMU film school in Prague, but young Ivan was eventually expelled from the academy. By then he had acquired skills in movie-making, some experience and had key friends, such as cinematographer Miroslav Ondricek. With Forman and other friends, they made their first movies.
In 1965 Passer made a remarkable first feature, the beautiful "Intimate Lighting", a film of impressionist inspiration that immediately established his name as a promising new director. But the social pressures and political unrest in Czechoslovakia, which culminated in 1968 with the Soviet invasion, led him into exile the following year. However, in the United States he did not achieve the notoriety of Forman, who received the best proposals, while he rejected offers that did not convince him: for example, he refused to make "Yentl" for a number of reasons, including his conviction that Barbra Streisand was too old and famous for the role, in opposition to other key performers as Mandy Patinkin and Amy Irving. Likewise, he refused to make films with elements of violence, which he always opposed. During World War II he had been directly exposed to violence, and he believed that it was dangerous to represent it in films: violence, he said, affects "some people who are not able to realize the difference between reality and fantasy."
However, he made some worthy movies, such as his American debut "Born to Win" (1971), a complex portrait of a heroin-addict hairdresser; his satire on civil surveillance, "Law and Disorder" (1974); the comedy about money-laundering bankers "Silver Bears" (1977), and the cult film "Cutter's Way" (1981), in which a war veteran investigates a crime, despite he only has one eye, one arm and one leg. For television he directed the biopic "Stalin" in 1992.
Passer taught film at the University of Southern California, and lectured students in foreign film academies. He died in Reno, Nevada, on January 9, 2020.- Director
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One of the most acclaimed and successful Yugoslav directors, born in 1929. in Paris. Studied film directing at the prestigious Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague (1947/48). His studies remained unfinished due to the political aggravation between Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia at the time and he was forced to return to homeland. He graduated Art History in Belgrade (1955). Filmmaker since 1948. in various projects. At first, assisting to other directors and shooting documentaries. Awarded several times for his early works in these movies including very successful documentaries 'Let nad mocvarom' (1956), 'Petar Dobrovic' (1958), 'Putevi' (1959) and 'Sabori' (1963). After two films with various success and acclamation ('Dvoje' in 1961 and 'Dani' in 1963) he directs very successful war drama 'Tri' ('Three', 1965) which won raves from critics in Yugoslavia and Europe and an Best Foreign Language Oscar nomination in 1966. However, film wasn't so well received in theaters. Now it is considered one of the best movies in Yugoslavia. His next project 'Skupljaci perja' ('I Even Met Happy Gypsies', 1967), metaphorical social drama about gypsies was even more successful. It also won an Oscar nomination - the very next year after 'Three' - in 1967, Grand Jury Prize and FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes Film Festival and established Petrovic as one of the most talented and skillful European directors in 1960s. Unlike 'Three' it was very well received and translated in over 100 languages. In 1977. he made the German film Group Portrait with a Lady (1977) starring Romy Schneider, which was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival. Members of Yugoslavian Board of the Academy of Film Art and Science (AFUN) voted two of his movies among ten best Serbian films in 1947-1995 period - 'I Even Met Happy Gypsies' (#2) and 'Three' (#4). He was one of the founders of so-called New Yugoslavian Film wave. Was professor at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. Wrote several books on movie and was film theoretic.- Director
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Andrzej Munk was born on 16 October 1920 in Kraków, Malopolskie, Poland. He was a director and writer, known for Passenger (1963), Eroica (1958) and Man on the Tracks (1957). He died on 20 September 1961 in Lowicz, Lódzkie, Poland.- Director
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- Actor
Frantisek Vlácil was born on 19 February 1924 in Cesky Tesin, Moravian-Silesian, Czech Republic. He was a director and writer, known for Marketa Lazarová (1967), The Valley of the Bees (1968) and Adelheid (1969). He died on 28 January 1999 in Prague, Czech Republic.- Director
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- Actor
Karel Kachyna was born on 1 May 1924 in Vyskov, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]. He was a director and writer, known for The Ear (1970), Nadeje (1964) and The High Wall (1964). He was married to Alena Mihulová. He died on 12 March 2004 in Prague, Czech Republic.- Director
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Jirí Weiss was born on 29 March 1913 in Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary [now Czech Republic]. He was a director and writer, known for Vlcí jáma (1958), 90 Degrees in the Shade (1965) and Martha et moi (1990). He was married to Katerina Weiss. He died on 9 April 2004 in Santa Monica, California, USA.- Director
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- Actor
Jan Nemec was born on 12 July 1936 in Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]. He was a director and writer, known for Toyen (2005), Diamonds of the Night (1964) and Mucedníci lásky (1967). He was married to Iva Ruszeláková, Veronica Baumann, Marta Kubisová and Ester Krumbachová. He died on 18 March 2016 in Prague, Czech Republic.- Director
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Born in Kraków, Poland, in 1925. Feature film director. Graduated in 1946 from Cracow Film Institute, also studied painting. From 1947 to 1957 made a number of documentary shorts and educational films. Feature film debut: _The Noose_ (Petla, 1958, co-scr.). Other films: _Farewells_ (Pozegnania, 1958, co-scr.), awarded in Locarno and London 1959; _Roommates_ ((Wspolny pokoj, 1960, co-scr.); _Parting_ (Rozstanie, 1961); _Gold_ (Zloto, 1962); _How to Be Loved_ (Jak byc kochana, 1962), Polish Film Critics award, also awarded in San Francisco 1963 and beirut 1964; _The Saragossa Manuscript_ (Pamietnik znaleziony w Saragossie, 1964), awarded in San Sebastian and Edinburgh 1965, in Sitges 1966; _Codes_ (Szyfry, 1966), _The Doll_ (Lalka, 1968, co-scr.), awarded in Panama 1969; _The Sandglass_ (Sanatorium pod Klepsydra, 1973), awarded in Cannes 1973, Grand Prix in Trieste 1974.- Writer
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- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Born in Lvov, Ukraine; then he moved with his father Miroslaw Zulawski to Czechoslovakia and later to Poland. In the late 1950s, he studied cinema in France. In the 1960s, he was an assistant of the famous Polish film director Andrzej Wajda. His feature debut The Third Part of the Night (1971) was an adaptation of his father's novel. His second feature The Devil (1972) was prohibited in Poland, and Zulawski went to France. After the success of his French debut That Most Important Thing: Love (1975) in 1975, he returned to Poland where he spent two years in making On the Silver Globe (1988). The work on this film was brutally interrupted by the authorities. After that, Zulawski moved to France where became known for his highly artistic, controversial, and very violent films. Zulawski is well known for his ability to discover and "rediscover" actresses. Romy Schneider, Isabelle Adjani and Sophie Marceau played their best parts in his films.- Director
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Lucian Pintilie was born on 9 November 1933 in Tarutino, Bessarabia, Romania [now Tarutyne, Odessa Oblast, Ukraine]. He was a director and writer, known for Next Stop Paradise (1998), Sunday at Six (1966) and The Oak (1992). He was married to Clody Bertola. He died on 16 May 2018 in Bucharest, Romania.- Director
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- Actor
The son of actors Rade Markovic and Olivera Markovic, between 1965 and 1970 he studied film directing in Prague and then started working for television, directing documentaries and about fifty tv movies. His first theatrical feature was the critically acclaimed and financially successful Special Education (1977). Although his followup film was also extremely successful, most of the critics panned it: it would take more than ten years before it was recognized as a classic. Most of his following features have been screened in various Yugoslavian and international festivals. Besides making movies, Markovic also staged two plays and wrote three more. Since 1979 he's been teaching film directing in Belgrade's Dramatic Arts faculty.