Vojtech Jasny

Born on November 30, 1925, in Kelč,  Vojtech Jasny shot several documentaries and shorts until he directed his first feature film, Zárijové noci, from 1957. He began to have an international presence in 1963 with One day, a cat , about a circus that arrives to a small town.

After the anti-communist protests of the Prague Spring, he collected the political changes that took place in his country in  All Good Citizens , from 1969, which includes several intertwined stories. For this film he won the best director award at the Cannes Film Festival that year. But his exhibition in the nation was prohibited, and due to the invasion of the USSR the filmmaker had to go into exile, like many other artists and intellectuals.

He worked in various European countries –such as the Federal Republic of Germany, where he directed Opinions of a Clown , an adaptation of the famous novel by Heinrich Böll– until he moved to New York in the early 1980s. There he taught conducting classes. of cinema at Columbia University, where his illustrious compatriot Milos Forman was also a professor . In Hollywood he directed titles like the wacky children’s comedy  The Magic Formula . 

One of his grandsons, Marcel Jasny, follows in his footsteps as a filmmaker, with titles such as episodes of the Xiaolin Chronicles series .