Václav Havel
Birthday: Born in 1936-10-05 in Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]
Deathday: 2011-12-18
Václav Havel (5 October 1936 – 18 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and former dissident. Havel served as the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia on 31 December 1992 and then as the first president of the Czech Republic from 1993 to 2003. He was the first democratically elected president of either country after the fall of communism. As a writer of Czech literature, he is known for his plays, essays, and memoirs.
TV Credits
The Lost World of Communism
Character:
The Lost World of Communism is a three-part British documentary series which examines the legacy of Communism twenty years on from the fall of the Berlin Wall. Produced by Peter Molloy and Lucy Hetherington, the series takes a retrospective look at life behind the Iron Curtain between 1945 and 1989, focusing on three countries in the Eastern Bloc - East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Romania. Through film and television footage and the personal recollections of those who lived in these countries, t...
Movie Credits
Zappa
Character: Self - President of Czechoslovakia (archive footage)
With the help of more than 10,000 dedicated Zappa fans, this is the long-awaited definitive documentary project of Alex Winter documenting the life and career of enigmatic groundbreaking rock star Frank Zappa. Alex also utilizes in this picture thousands of hours of painstakingly digitized videos, photos, audio, writing, and everything in between from Zappa's private archives. These chronicles have never been brought to a public audience before, until now....
Občan Havel
Character: Self
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I am Fishead
Character: himself
A provocative snapshot of the world we live in. It is a well-known fact that our society is structured like a pyramid. The very few people at the top create conditions for the majority below. Who are these people? Can we blame them for the problems our society faces today? Guided by the saying “A fish rots from the head” we set out to follow that fishy odor. What we found out is that people at the top are more likely to be psychopaths than the rest of us....
Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart
Character: Self
An incredible retracing of the evolution of Reed's remarkable career over three decades. Filled with interviews with Reed, his friends and some of the major artists influenced by Reed including David Bowie, David Byrne, Patti Smith, Suzanne Vega, Dave Stewart, Philip Glass and more. Production Notes, Biographies, Discography, Scene Access, Screen Test, Rare Velvet Footage...
Why Havel?
Character: Václav Havel
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 le...
Czech Made Man
Character: jako host
The movie is based on the narrative of a Czech multimillionaire who achieved success not by stripping companies, making crooked deals and crony-ism, but by blazing his own trail like Schweikesque self-made man. He realizes early on that he has nobody but himself to rely on. During the totalitarian regime of the 80s, he ambles along his oddball path and then experiences the Velvet Revolution atypically, too - in an asylum amidst nut-cases. After the Revolution, he really gets rolling. To Germany ...
Havel Speaking, Can You Hear Me?
Character: Self (archive footage)
This time-lapse documentary follows the last years of former President Václav Havel's life, creating a multi-layered portrait of a world-famous political icon and important playwright, but also an ordinary man plagued by health problems. Havel allows the filmmakers a glimpse behind the scenes of his life, revealing purely personal moments that present him in previously unrecognised contours. With a sense of humour, he reflects on his political legacy and universal human issues. The central motif...
Life Is Bearable at Times...
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Documentary about Polish poet and Nobel Prize winner Wisława Szymborska....
Curious: The Velvet Underground in Europe
Character: Self
Spotlights the Velvet Underground's 1993 reunion tour of Europe, interspersing footage of the band's Paris concert and interviews with the members of the group. Concerts in Prague and Berlin included....
Alžběta II.: Tři dny v Česku
Character: Self (archive footage)
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Every Young Man
Character: trpěliví
Jurácek's feature debut is shot in two parts. In the first, a corporal accompanies a new recruit with a sore Achilles tendon for his physical, and all the girls or young women they see are played by the same actress (Ruzickova). In the longer second segment, shot with the help of the Czechoslovakia army, the soldiers pass the time during basic training and maneuvers by talking about girls....
Eye Over Prague
Character:
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Vaclav Havel, ein böhmisches Märchen
Character: Self
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Hammer & Tickle
Character: Self (archive footage)
Hammer & Tickle: The Communist Joke Book is a 2006 propaganda documentary film about "jokes" under the Soviet Union....
Stone Bridge
Character: President
A bitter comedic-drama centering around Tomas, a former promising young director who must cope with a commerce driven world he no longer wants to participate in....
Věra 68
Character: Himself
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Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words
Character: Self (archive footage)
Utilizing potent TV interviews and many forgotten performances from his 30-year career, we are immersed into Frank Zappa’s world while experiencing two distinct facets of his complex character. At once Zappa was both a charismatic composer who reveled in the joy of performing and, in the next moment, a fiercely intelligent and brutally honest interviewee whose convictions only got stronger as his career ascended....
Síla lidskosti - Nicholas Winton
Character: Self
A gripping documentary about the courage and determination of a young English stockbroker who saved the lives of 669 children. Between March 13 and August 2, 1939, Nicholas Winton organized 8 transports to take children from Prague to new homes in Great Britain, and kept quiet about it until his wife discovered a scrapbook documenting his unique mission in 1988. Winton was a successful 29-year-old stockbroker in London who "had an intuition" about the fate of the Jews when he visited Prague in 1...
Citizen Vaclav Havel Goes on Vacation
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This quirky documentary follows Vaclav Havel on an eye-opening journey across his native Czechoslovakia in the days before he became president of the Czech Republic. A leading playwright, essayist, intellectual and political dissident in 1985, Havel decides to explore the limits of the secret police by traveling and visiting a variety of friends. Along the way, he's thrown in jail twice and followed by hundreds of undercover cops....
Olga
Character: Self
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Late Night Talks with Mother
Character: Václav Havel
Taking a cue from Franz Kafka's "Letter to My Father," this highly personal film follows Czech director Jan Nemec as he attempts to engage in a dialogue with his deceased mother. While alive, Nemec's mother had a troubled relationship with her son; this rumination seems to be Nemec's public platform for coming to terms with unresolved familial issues. The director embellishes his film by linking personal events with 20th century history....
Život podle Václava Havla
Character: Himself (archive footage)
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Jak odchází prezident...
Character: Self (archive footage)
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Forman vs. Forman
Character: Self - Friend (archive footage)
A moving account, in his own words, of the personal life and work of the brilliant Czech filmmaker Miloš Forman (1932-2018): his tragic childhood, his major contribution to the cultural movement known as the Czech New Wave, his exile in Paris, his troubled days in New York, his rise to stardom in Hollywood; a complete existence in the service of cinema....
Drawn from Memory
Character: Self (voice)
Fierlinger concentrates his considerable talents as an animator to recount through fragmented memories, vivid recollections, and the occasional evocative photograph his life as the rebellious son of Jan Fierlinger, Czechoslovakian career politician....
Wisdom
Character:
Inspired by the idea that the greatest gift one generation can give to another is the wisdom it has gained from experience, 'Wisdom' seeks to create a record of a group of people over the age of 65 who have all made their mark on the world....
Mečiar: The Lust For Power
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The film Mečiar is the confession of the young director Tereza Nvotová about Vladimír Mečiar and the influence that this politician had on Slovak society, but also on the life of Tereza herself. When the totalitarian communist regime fell in Czechoslovakia in 1989, Tereza was one year old. The leaders of the Gentle Revolution then decided to hold an audition for the Minister of the Interior, to which Vladimír Mečiar, an unknown business lawyer from the Slovak countryside at the time, applied. Af...