"Josef Škvorecký, the Czech-Canadian novelist whose stories of life under totalitarianism drew on his own experiences of both Nazism and Communism, died on Tuesday," reports Joseph Brean for Postmedia News. "He was 87. His novel The Engineer of Human Souls, a humorous account of the absurdity of totalitarianism, won the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction in 1984, and he was awarded the prestigious Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1980."
From Reuters: "Škvorecký and his author wife Zdena Salivarova set up the Sixty-Eight Publishers in Toronto after leaving Czechoslovakia in the wake of the 1968 Soviet invasion that crushed hopes of the 'Prague Spring' reforms. He published 227 titles in total. Škvorecký's death comes after fellow leading lights of the Czech artistic anti-communist generation also died in the past year. They include [Václav] Havel, who died in December, as well as authors Ivan Martin Jirous, Arnost Lustig and Jiří Gruša."
"Škvorecký left no shortage of legacies to remember him by,...
From Reuters: "Škvorecký and his author wife Zdena Salivarova set up the Sixty-Eight Publishers in Toronto after leaving Czechoslovakia in the wake of the 1968 Soviet invasion that crushed hopes of the 'Prague Spring' reforms. He published 227 titles in total. Škvorecký's death comes after fellow leading lights of the Czech artistic anti-communist generation also died in the past year. They include [Václav] Havel, who died in December, as well as authors Ivan Martin Jirous, Arnost Lustig and Jiří Gruša."
"Škvorecký left no shortage of legacies to remember him by,...
- 1/4/2012
- MUBI
Influential Czech film director with a talent for self-preservation
The Czech film director Otakar Vávra, who has died aged 100, was born in Bohemia when it was part of the Austro- Hungarian empire, and was seven years old when Czechoslovakia became an independent nation in 1918. He lived through the German occupation, communism and the Velvet Revolution, and saw his country become the Czech Republic in 1993, while never ceasing to make films. In each epoch, Vávra changed his skin in order to save it.
Among his lasting achievements was the film faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts (Famu) in Prague, which he helped establish after the second world war and where he taught for five decades. Among his students were Vera Chytilová, Milos Forman, Ivan Passer and Jiri Menzel, all directors of the 60s Czech new wave, and more recently Emir Kusturica, all of whom had high praise for his teaching.
The Czech film director Otakar Vávra, who has died aged 100, was born in Bohemia when it was part of the Austro- Hungarian empire, and was seven years old when Czechoslovakia became an independent nation in 1918. He lived through the German occupation, communism and the Velvet Revolution, and saw his country become the Czech Republic in 1993, while never ceasing to make films. In each epoch, Vávra changed his skin in order to save it.
Among his lasting achievements was the film faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts (Famu) in Prague, which he helped establish after the second world war and where he taught for five decades. Among his students were Vera Chytilová, Milos Forman, Ivan Passer and Jiri Menzel, all directors of the 60s Czech new wave, and more recently Emir Kusturica, all of whom had high praise for his teaching.
- 11/7/2011
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Errol Morris, London
The esteem in which this documentarian is held can be judged by the people interviewing him on stage: BBC Storyville producer Nick Fraser, Adam Curtis, Franny Armstrong and the Guardian's Xan Brooks. Each Q&A is preceded by a screening of Morris's latest, Tabloid, which marks a return to his eccentric terrain after recent films on Abu Ghraib (Standard Operating Procedure) and the Vietnam war (The Fog Of War). Tabloid revisits the very British scandal of Joyce McKinney, a Wyoming beauty queen who allegedly kidnapped and sexually enslaved her beau – or did she rescue him from the Mormons? Morris gives us the story from all sides.
Brixton Ritzy, SW2, Sat; Bafta, W1, Sun; Gate Notting Hill, W11; Screen On The Green, N1, Tue
French Film Festival, On tour
There's a tinge of nostalgia to the festival's big draws this year. Special guest Daniel Auteuil harks back to...
The esteem in which this documentarian is held can be judged by the people interviewing him on stage: BBC Storyville producer Nick Fraser, Adam Curtis, Franny Armstrong and the Guardian's Xan Brooks. Each Q&A is preceded by a screening of Morris's latest, Tabloid, which marks a return to his eccentric terrain after recent films on Abu Ghraib (Standard Operating Procedure) and the Vietnam war (The Fog Of War). Tabloid revisits the very British scandal of Joyce McKinney, a Wyoming beauty queen who allegedly kidnapped and sexually enslaved her beau – or did she rescue him from the Mormons? Morris gives us the story from all sides.
Brixton Ritzy, SW2, Sat; Bafta, W1, Sun; Gate Notting Hill, W11; Screen On The Green, N1, Tue
French Film Festival, On tour
There's a tinge of nostalgia to the festival's big draws this year. Special guest Daniel Auteuil harks back to...
- 11/5/2011
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
- I don't see them as comeback kids, but rather, old school folk churning out the occasional gem and still knowing their ways about the process. Filmmaking is not like learning how to ride a bike. Just ask Wim Wenders. With a lot less frequency than a Woody Allen or a Jacques Rivette, the director behind 1966's Closely Watched Trains, was recently cited for his skill with a Best Foreign film nomination. Sony Pictures Classics has got Jirí Menzel's I Served the King of England on tap for a mid August release. We have the large poster below. Based on a picaresque novel by Czech novelist Bohumil Hrabal, this is the burlesque rise and fall of an apprentice waiter in Prague during the first half of the last century. Jan Dítě (Ivan Barnev) is short in height, but high in ambition. To put it bluntly, the young provincial waiter wants to become a millionaire.
- 6/16/2008
- IONCINEMA.com
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