Esteemed Slovak film director Juraj Jakubisko dies

Jakubisko died shortly before midnight on Friday in the Czech capital, Prague, where he had lived with his family since 1993.

His death has also been also announced by the Czech Culture Ministry.

Jakubisko has dozens of feature films and shorts to his credit, winning a number of awards at international film festivals.

Born April 30, 1938, in the village of Kojsov in what is now eastern Slovakia, Jakubisko graduated from Prague’s Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in 1966.

Few moviemakers are as important to their country as Juraj Jakubisko, the most popular Slovakian director since the sixties who was an exceptional witness of the events of his homeland.

In 1967, when New Cinemas were being born, when winds of freedom began to blow in the Eastern Countries thanks to the loosening up of the Soviet grip, a young Slovak film-maker, Juraj Jakubisko, released his first long feature, Crucial Years (Kristove roky, 1967).

This imaginative and bittersweet autobiographical reflection prompted positive responses from critics and audiences alike. The director’s next film, The Deserter and the Nomads (Zbehovia a putnici, 1968), was selected to participate in the Mostra in Venice, and Jakubisko’s name began to be recognized as one of the most representatives of the Czechoslovak Nova Vlna (New Wave).