Karel Kachyňa (1 May 1924 – 12 March 2004) was a Czech film director and screenwriter. His career spanned over five decades.

Early life

He was born on May 1, 1924, in Vyškov, Czechoslovakia. His father was a government officer. His mother was an art teacher. After spending first 4 years of his life in Vyškov, he moved with his family to Dačice and then Kroměříž. Kachyňa studied at Baťa School of Art in Zlín. During the WWII he was forced to work in a German factory Walter Georgi in Bernsbach. After the war he was able to finish high school and work on commercials at the Baťa film studios in Zlín. Kachyňa was then accepted at newly founded Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) to study cinematography and directing. His fellow students were Vojtěch Jasný, Zdeněk Podskalský and Antonín Kachlík.

Career

After the graduation he directed socialist realist propaganda documentaries with Jasný. Throughout the 1950s they both worked for the Czechoslovak Army Film. In the 1952 they traveled to China with Art Ensemble of the Czechoslovak People's Army and made three documentaries about the country. Kachyňa made his most celebrated movies with a screenwriter Jan Procházka in relatively free period in the 1960s. After the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and in subsequent Normalization period, his politically critical movies Long Live the Republic!, Coach to Vienna, The Nun's Night and The Ear were banned. Kachyňa was fired from his teaching job at FAMU, after the film Uninvited Guest by his student Vlastimil Venclík was interpreted as being a criticism of the Soviet Invasion. From the 1970s he directed mostly historical movies focused on the lives of regular people, and children movies. After the Velvet Revolution he was re-hired at FAMU and continued to teach there until his retirement.

Personal life

Kachyňa was married twice. He had one daughter, Eliška, with his first wife Eliška Kuchařová. He met his second wife Alena Mihulová during the filming of Sestřičky in 1983. Their daughter, Karolína, was born in 1994. He lived in the 16th century house in Nový svět neighbourhood near Czernin Palace at Hradčany, Prague.

Filmography

Feature films

Television

Documentaries