Jan Němec

Czech director, film producer and teacher at FAMU. One of the leading authors of the Czechoslovak New Wave. He was partly banned from making films in 1966, definitively in 1968, when the Soviet army invaded Czechoslovakia. At the same time, the world was stunned by Němec's documentary about the Prague Spring and the invasion. In 1974, he was forced to exile. He lived and created mostly in Western Germany, USA, UK and Sweden. In December of 1989 he returned home and to filmmaking as well. He produced most of his films in company of his own, Jan Němec - Film, which he co-founded in 1993 together with his later wife, Iva Ruszeláková.

In 1969, he was named one of the best five directors of the world by British magazine Film and Filming. In 1989, he was nominated for an EMMY award for his film Milosz: The Poet Remembers (1988). In 2002, Němec was awarded a Medal of Merit for his work in culture (by president Václav Havel). In 2005 he received the Czech Lion award for his lifetime achievement, and his oustanding contribution to the world cinema was awarded with a Crystal Globe at KVIFF 2006 and later, in 2011, also with the Prize of The Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.

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