karel vachek
screenwriter/director
Karel Vachek studied direction at Prague's film school, FAMU. His graduate film “Moravian Hellas” (1963) was banned by the government and, with the exception of a brief period in 1968, was not screened for twenty-five years. In 1968 he directed “Elective Affinities” a documentary about the presidential elections held during the Prague Spring. The official response to this film was no less severe and for the next 21 years, his film career in Czechoslovakia was essentially forbidden, causing him to emigrate in 1979, first to France and then to the U.S. In 1984 he returned to Czechoslovakia for family reasons and, until the political changes of 1989, could only find work outside his profession - truck driver, copy editor. In 1990, finally rehabilitated, he began work on his tetralogy “Little Capitalists,” which was completed in 2004 with the final installment "Dalibor".
