Vojtěch Jasný

Vojtěch Jasný born 30 November 1925 15 November 2019 was a Czech director who came to prominence in the sixties He won a Cannes Special Jury Prize for Až přijde kocourThe Cassandra Cat 1963 He was born in Kelč in Moravia An active filmmaker in Czechoslovakia throughout the 1950s and 1960s he was among many artists and intellectuals who left the country after the USSRled invasion following the Prague Spring of 1968 Jasný worked in other European countries for several years including Austria West Germany and Yugoslavia until relocating to Brooklyn New York in the early 1980s Jasný taught film directing classes at Columbia University for several years where his compatriot Miloš Forman was also a professor and former Film Division CoChair and continues to teach at The School of Visual Arts SVA and The New York Film Academy NYFA Až přijde kocourThe Cassandra Cat is an allegorical fable about a magical cat that comes to a small Czech town and causes the underlying nature of the townspeople to be revealed The film won a Special Jury Prize at Cannes Also among Jasnýs works is Všichni dobří rodáci All My Good Countrymen 1968 a story centering on the lives and fates of several rural Czechs as they struggle to adapt and survive under communist rule a film later banned in Czechoslovakia after the invasion of 1968