Jan Hřebejk

Jan Hřebejk (born June 27, 1967 in Prague) is a Czech film director. He studied together with his frequent scriptwriter Petr Jarchovský at middle school and, from 1987 to 1991, at FAMU, an arts college in Prague for film and television, studying screenplay and dramaturgy.

During his FAMU studies, Hřebejk directed and produced two short films, "Co všechno chcete vědět o sexu a bojíte se to prožít" ("Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Experience", 1988) and "L.P. 1948 – 1989" to a script by his classmate Petr Zelenka. His professional directorial debut was a short film for Czech TV, "Nedělejte nic, pokud k tomu nemáte vážný důvod" ("Don't do anything, if you don't have good reason", 1991). His films caught the attention of viewers and critics, and entered student film festivals.

Together with Petr Jarchovský, he a wrote, during his FAMU studies, a comedy screenplay, inspired by his background at a pioneer summer camp, "Pějme píseň dohola" ("Let's Sing Around"). This screenplay was filmed as a full-length feature by director Ondřej Trojan and cameraman Asen Šopov in 1990.

Filmography

* "Dobročinný večírek" ("Charity Benefit", 1992)
* "Šakalí léta" ("Big Beat", 1993)
* "Kde padají hvězdy" ("Where Stars Fall", 1996)
* "Pelíšky" ("Cosy Dens", 1999)
* "Musíme si pomáhat" ("Divided We Fall", 2000)
* "Pupendo" (2003)
* "Horem pádem" ("Up and Down, Loop the Loop", 2004)
* "Kráska v nesnázích" ("Beauty in Trouble", 2006)
* "U mě dobrý" (2008)
* "Nestyda" (2008)

Šakalí léta

It was a time of poverty and political darkness. A time, when families gathered to watch the first television screens, when kids collected the packages from American cigarettes, and when a whole generation sought escape from a bleak socialist future. When "Baby" arrives in a suburb of Prague one day in the summer of 1959, he brings along more than just his guitar and flashy clothes: he brings a rock 'n' roll revolution. A story about the generation gap; a story of breaking rules and breaking rules; but most of all, it's about how music can change a whole generation. Set in Dejvice, a working-class neighborhood of Prague, and centered around the Hotel International, "Šakalí léta" follows the lives of a gang of kids and teenagers, who, thanks to "Baby", find out there's more to life than the well-ordered system they've been taught to obey.

Pelíšky

This bittersweet coming-of-age story is set in the months leading up to the ill-fated 1968 Prague Spring. Teenager Michal Šebek (Michael Beran) develops a serious crush on his hip neighbor, Jindřiška Kraus (Kristyna Novakova). The problem is that his family is headed by a dull-witted army officer who believes that the latest East German Tupperware will sufficiently shame those American imperialists, while her father is an ardent foe of the Communists saved from prison only because he is a war hero. Much to the parents' dismay, the younger generation couldn't give a fig for politics. Instead, Michal sports a Beatles mop-top and runs a local film group specializing in Hollywood and pre-war French films, while Jindřiška starts hanging out with a mysterious hipster. "Pelíšky" was screened at the 1999 Vancouver Film Festival.

Pupendo

"Pupendo" shows the difficulty of life in Czechoslovakia during the 1980s. Artist Bedřich Mára (Bolek Polivka) is unable to find much secure work due to his public antagonism toward the ruling Communist Party. He has a wife and two children. Life begins to change when art historian Alois Fábera (Jiři Pecha) begins working on a piece about Bedřich, leading to a job offer from a Party official. Things are looking up, until the wrong people hear portions of the historian's writing.

External links

*
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108027/ Šakalí léta at the Internet Movie Database]
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167331/ Pelíšky at the Internet Movie Database]
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0234288/ Musíme si pomáhat at the Internet Movie Database]
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0357058/ Pupendo at the Internet Movie Database]