Official Club Meeting With Czech Film Director Jiří Menzel
March 10th, 2014, Monday
On 10 March 2014, at 19:00 hrs in Triaditsa 2 Hall of Grand Hotel Sofia, the members, partners and friends of the Reform Union Club will have the unique opportunity to meet and talk with world famous Czech film director Jiří Menzel. The cult filmmaker will arrive in Sofia as a special guest of the latest edition of Sofia Film Festival, and in order to receive the title Doctor Honoris Causa conferred to him by the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts.
Below follows a short biography of Jiří Menzel:
The Prague-born director is one of the most important international directors belonging to the generation of the so-called Czech New Wave. Together with Miloš Forman, Vera Chytilova and Jaromil Jireš, he has written his name in the history of international cinematographic art and has received worldwide recognition as one of the greatest masters of comedy of the 20th century. Menzel’s big break came in 1967 with the Oscar he received for his cult film Closely Watched Trains (based on the novel by Bohumil Hrabal). The communist government at the time insisted that Menzel should give up the capitalist statuette, but the director did not comply.
In 1969, Jiří Menzel created one of his most mature works – Larks on a String. Because of its critical depiction of the communist regime, the movie was banned from the big screen until 1990 when it finally had its world premiere. In that very year Menzel received a Golden Bear for the film.
In the late 1970s and the early 1980s, Jiří Menzel made mostly non-political, nostalgic comedies which at times resemble more closely a farce. In 1986, he once again rose to the top of international fame with the film My Sweet Little Village which was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Film category. Among Bulgarian movie fans, the Czech director is also known for his film I Served the King of England from 2006, which starred Bulgarian actor Ivan Barnev.
After a prolonged hiatus, Menzel returned to cinema with the comedy The Don Juans (Donšajni). The film, for which he also wrote the script, was selected as the candidate to represent the country at the Academy Awards.
