Vojtěch Jasný (30 November 1925 – 15 November 2019)[1] was a Czech director, screenwriter and professor who has written and directed over 50 films. Jasný made feature and documentary films in Czechoslovakia, Germany, Austria, USA & Canada, and was a notable figure in the Czechoslovak New Wave movement of the 1960s. He is best remembered for his movies The Cassandra Cat and All My Compatriots, both of which won prizes at Cannes Film Festival. In addition to his film career, he taught directing at film schools in Salzburg, Vienna, Munich and New York.[2]
Life
Jasný was born in Kelč, Czechoslovakia on 30 November 1925. His father was a teacher. In 1929 his father bought a movie projector for a local Sokol club, which provided Jasný's first introduction to cinema. After watching Renoir's The Little Match Girl he decided to become a filmmaker. During his teens, he made amateur movies on a 9mm camera. During WWII his father was arrested and sent to Auschwitz where he died in 1942. After the war Jasný went to study philosophy and Russian language, but he switched to study filmmaking at newly founded FAMU in 1946. His professors were Karel Plicka, Vsevolod Pudovkin and hosting professors Cesare Zavattini and Giuseppe De Santis. Since 1950 he co-directed many documentaries with Karel Kachyňa. His movies Desire and The Cassandra Cat were nominated for Palme d'Or. In 1968, he directed All My Compatriots which won the award for Best Director at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival.
In 2009 Arkaitz Basterra Zalbide made a documentary about Jasný called Life and Film (The Labyrinthine Biographies of Vojtěch Jasný) which was later released as a book.[4]
He died on November 13, 2019, aged 93.[5]
Filmography
Feature films
Television films
1969: Warum ich Dich liebe
1970: Christmas Not Just Once a Year [de] — (based on Christmas Not Just Once a Year [de] by Heinrich Böll)
1972: Der Leuchtturm — (based on a story by Ladislav Mňačko)
1972: Nasrin oder Die Kunst zu träumen — (based on a play by Herbert Asmodi [de])
1974: Der Kulterer [de] — (based on Der Kulterer [de] by Thomas Bernhard)