The Elementary School

Shortly after the Velvet Revolution, young director Jan Svěrák—already a winner of a Student Oscar for Oil Gobblers (1988)—made his feature film debut with a story set just after World War II. The screenplay was written by his father, Zdeněk Svěrák, who was nine years old in 1945, so it comes as no surprise that the film is highly autobiographical. “The student Eda is a l m o s t me. Please ignore the ‘almost’, because the script for The Elementary School is a mosaic composed not only of what I experienced, but also of what I wanted to experience, what others told me, and what I, as the author, had to invent to make it all fit together”, said the screenwriter, who also played Eda’s father. Eda is an ordinary boy who goes to an ordinary school but lives in extraordinary times—although he is not particularly interested in that yet. The universality of the story, combined with a touch of nostalgia and subtle humor, resulted in an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film and marked the emergence of one of the most important creative tandems in contemporary (and not only) Czech cinema.

Maciej Gil

Jan Svěrák (b. 1965) – Czech director, screenwriter, and producer. Son of actor and screenwriter Zdeněk (born 1936), and father of editor František (born 1991) and actor Ondřej (born 2001). A graduate of the documentary film department at FAMU in Prague. He won a Student Academy Award for Oil Gobblers (1988) and an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for Kolya (1996). He was also nominated for The Elementary School (1991) and received the Crystal Globe at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival for The Ride (1994), along with numerous Czech Lions and other awards. His films The Elementary School, Kolya, Dark Blue World (2001), and Empties (2007) rank among the biggest successes at the Czech box office. He has also appeared in cameo roles in films by his colleague Filip Renč.

Zdeněk Svěrák (b. 1936) – Czech actor, screenwriter, playwright, and author of numerous collections of short stories for children and adults (also published in Poland), as well as hundreds of song lyrics. Father of director, screenwriter, and producer Jan (born 1965), and grandfather of editor František (born 1991) and actor Ondřej (born 2001). Trained as a teacher of Czech language and literature. The recipient of countless awards, he has co-created films that won an Academy Award and received two further nominations. In 1967, he co-founded the Jára Cimrman Theatre, for which he wrote all the plays and where he continues to perform to this day. As a screenwriter, he has collaborated with some of the most prominent Czech directors, including Oldřich Lipský, Jiří Menzel, Vít Olmer, Ladislav Smoljak, and, of course, his son Jan. As an actor, he has appeared in films by the aforementioned directors as well as those by Věra Chytilová and Dušan Klein.

section partner