Jan Němec (filmmaker)

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Jan Němec (1967)

Jan Němec (born July 12, 1936 in Prague ; † March 18, 2016 there ) was a Czech filmmaker . Essential parts of the television images known about the suppression of the Prague Spring come from his documentary film material . The film historian Peter Hames described Němec as the “enfant terrible of the Czech nouvelle vague ”.

Life

Jan Němec studied at the Czech film school FAMU in Prague. Němec played an important role in the “New Wave” that formed around Jan Procházka in the 1960s.

In his diploma film at the university, Němec edited a short story by Arnošt Lustig about his experience in the concentration camp (Sousta) . Němec then filmed another Lustig story called Démanty noci ( Czech for nocturnal diamonds , 1964). The film shows the fate of two boys who flee from a train to the concentration camp and is formally noticeable through its experimental techniques of dramatic subjectivity ( flashbacks , hallucinations, etc.).

O slavnosti a hostech (Czech for About the festival and its guests , 1966) shows a picnic that, under the influence of a charismatic sadist , slips into totalitarian structures , conformism and the hunt for outsiders. The fact that the central character played by the playwright Ivan Vyskočil looked similar to Lenin in the opinion of the censors led to the film being banned. Most of the actors also belonged to the dissident scene .

Mučedníci lásky (1966) was an apolitical love story . With Mother and Son (1967) Němec won a prize at the International Short Film Festival in Oberhausen .

Oratorio for Prague became a documentary film about the crackdown on the Prague Spring. Němec personally handed the image material to the then Austrian television director Helmut Zilk and the ORF distributed it worldwide. Philip Kaufman incorporated original Němec material into his film The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988).

In 1974 Němec left Czechoslovakia , first lived in the Federal Republic of Germany , then in the United States and appeared as a pioneer of video film. After 1989 he returned to his homeland and made other films, such as Night Conversations with Mother ( Nočni hovory s matkou , 2001), a film that won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival .

Awards

Filmography (selection)

As a director

  • 1964: Diamonds of the Night (Démanty noci) (also book)
  • 1965: Pearls on the seabed , episode Die Betrüger (also book)
  • 1966: About the party and the guests (O slavnosti a hostech)
  • 1975: The transformation
  • 1990: Strahovská demonstrace
  • 1997: Jmeno kodu: Rubin
  • 2001: Night talks with the mother (Nočni hovory s matkou)
  • 2005: Toyen (also book)
  • 2009: Holka Ferrari Dino
  • 2016: The Wolf from the Royal Vineyard Road (Vlk z Královských Vinohrad)

As an actor

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Němec, Jan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech filmmaker
DATE OF BIRTH July 12, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague , Czechoslovakia
DATE OF DEATH March 18, 2016
Place of death Prague , Czech Republic