Vojtěch Jasný

Directing

Vojtěch Jasný

Born November 30, 1925 · Kelc, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]

Died November 15, 2019 · aged 93

Vojtěch Jasný (born 30 November 1925 – 15 November 2019) was a Czech director who came to prominence in the sixties. He won a Cannes Special Jury Prize for Až přijde kocour/The Cassandra Cat (1963). He was born in Kelč in Moravia. An active filmmaker in Czechoslovakia throughout the 1950s and 1960s, he was among many artists and intellectuals who left the country after the USSR-led invasion follo…

Known For

The PipesThe Pipes · 1966
The Pipes
6.01966
MovieComedy
This three-part Austrian/Czech comedy stretches the boundaries of what is considered to be humorous. Part one finds a silent film actor upset because of a rival actor's attention to the former's wife. When he kills his rival, it is only when he is strapped to the electric chair that he realizes that this is his last live scene. The second episode has the wife of an elderly British nobleman having an affair with the young gamekeeper of their estate. Part three finds a peasant woman taking a lover when her husband goes off to fight the war.
The Pilgrimage to the Holy VirginThe Pilgrimage to the Holy Virgin · 1961
The Pilgrimage to the Holy Virgin
8.01961
MovieComedy
Farmers get away from their arguments by embarking on a religious pilgrimage, enjoy a picnic en route, and on their return decide to form a cooperative.
When the Cat ComesWhen the Cat Comes · 1963
When the Cat Comes
7.01963
MovieComedyFantasy
While old Oliva tells a group of children about his life as a sailor and how he met Diana and her cat with sunglasses, a strange circus arrives in town.
A Boy And His CarA Boy And His Car · 1990
A Boy And His Car
1990
MovieDramaFamily
Playing hooky from school, Tony, a student/chorister at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, spends the afternoon at Central Park's Sailboat lake and retrieves a remote control device left behind by a pair of sailboat racers. Back in the schoolyard, Tony pretends that he has a car to go with the remote control. When another boy tries to take the control from him, it falls on the ground and a red remote-control sports car miraculously appears. The car "dances" to rap music and even brings Tony a can of soda. One day, a sinister-looking man with a briefcase steals the car and flees into the subway. Tony and his classmates pursue the thief to the Wall Street area and ask to inspect the briefcases of passing businessmen. Eluding the students, the crook hails a taxi and hurls the briefcase from the window. Next morning, Tony hears the sound of a sports car during a church service. Returning to its rightful owner, the magical car mysteriously reappears at the end of the processional.
All My Good CountrymenAll My Good Countrymen · 1969
All My Good Countrymen
7.61969
MovieDramaComedy
The lives of 7 friends in a small Czech town from 1945 to some time after 1958.
The Peanut Butter SolutionThe Peanut Butter Solution · 1985
The Peanut Butter Solution
5.71985
MovieFamilyFantasy
Peanut butter is the secret ingredient for magic potions made by two friendly ghosts. Eleven-year-old Michael loses all of his hair when he gets a fright and uses the potion to get his hair back, but too much peanut butter causes things to get a bit hairy.
The ClownThe Clown · 1976
The Clown
6.11976
MovieDrama
Based on the best-selling novel by Nobel-laureate Heinrich Böll, this drama is a passionate indictment of Catholicism. Hans Schnier (Helmut Griem) has earned his living as a clown, though he is in fact a very covert sort of social critic. After enduring a difficult childhood in Bonn during the Second World War, including his mother's fanatic Nazism, he is appalled to discover many of the people he knows and loves swept deeply into involvement in the Catholic Church.
The Great Land of SmallThe Great Land of Small · 1987
The Great Land of Small
6.81987
MovieFamilyFantasy
While visiting their grandparents in the Québec countryside, two children enter a fantasy kingdom and are confronted by evil forces.

Filmography

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A Boy And His CarA Boy And His Car · 1990
A Boy And His Car
1990
MovieDramaFamily
Playing hooky from school, Tony, a student/chorister at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, spends the afternoon at Central Park's Sailboat lake and retrieves a remote control device left behind by a pair of sailboat racers. Back in the schoolyard, Tony pretends that he has a car to go with the remote control. When another boy tries to take the control from him, it falls on the ground and a red remote-control sports car miraculously appears. The car "dances" to rap music and even brings Tony a can of soda. One day, a sinister-looking man with a briefcase steals the car and flees into the subway. Tony and his classmates pursue the thief to the Wall Street area and ask to inspect the briefcases of passing businessmen. Eluding the students, the crook hails a taxi and hurls the briefcase from the window. Next morning, Tony hears the sound of a sports car during a church service. Returning to its rightful owner, the magical car mysteriously reappears at the end of the processional.

Thanks

Why Havel?Why Havel? · 1991
Why Havel?
1991
MovieDocumentary
The first part of the block will be dedicated to the monograph Vojtěch Jasný: The Film Poet in Exile (2020) authored by the film historian Jiří Voráč. The monograph is centered on the legendary director’s life and career after his emigration to Western Europe and to the US after 1968, which have so far received little attention. In exile, Jasný established himself as a film director (he authored over thirty cinema and TV films and documentaries), stage director, photographer, and film studies lecturer. The first part will be followed by the screening of Jasný’s documentary Why Havel? co-produced by himself and Miloš Forman in Canada and Czechoslovakia in 1991. As remarkable as this reflection of the paradoxical transformation of a dissident into a president in the carnival-like atmosphere of the euphoric post-revolution period with the first question marks already appearing may be, it did not meet the expectations of the head of state.

Screenplay