kviff.com
News
Festival Guide
  • Tickets and Festival Pass
  • Accommodations
  • Transportation
  • Festival cinemas
  • First time at the festival
  • No Barriers project
  • Kids at the festival
  • Festival Shop
Program
  • Catalogue of Films
  • Daily Program
  • Accompanying Program
  • Archive of Films
  • Audience Award
  • KVIFF Talks
  • Film Entry
Film Industry
  • Industry Accreditation
  • Film Industry at KVIFF
  • Industry Days Programme
  • KVIFF Eastern Promises
  • KVIFF Talents
Press
  • Press Accreditation
  • Press Service
  • For download
  • Press releases
  • Photogallery
  • Videogallery
About the Festival
  • Festival description
  • Programme sections
  • Awards
  • Juries
  • History
  • We support non-profits
  • Photogallery
  • Partners
  • Why We Support the Festival
  • Festival team
CZ
Sign in

Slovak director Juraj Jakubisko has died at the age of 84. "Fellini of the East" won the Crystal Globe at the KVIFF

February 25, 2023, 12:22

Slovak director Juraj Jakubisko has died at the age of 84. He was one of the most famous Slovak filmmakers and was nicknamed the "Fellini of the East". During his career he made dozens of feature films and documentaries. Among his best-known works are The Millennial Bee​, The Feather Fairy​, An Ambiguous Report about the End of the World​, and a film Bathory. In 2008, Juraj Jakubisko was awarded the Crystal Globe at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival for his outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema. On KVIFF.TV you can watch another of Jakubisko's outstanding films - Sitting on a Branch, Enjoying Myself​, which competed for the Golden Lion for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival in 1989.​

The Prague FAMU graduate made her debut with her first feature film, The Prime of Life, in 1967. Films such as The Deserter and the Nomads, Birdies, Orphans and Fools and See You in Hell, Friends, full of poetry, metaphors and symbols, which he used to return to his native Eastern Slovakia and to the people there, were banned by the normalisers in communist Czechoslovakia. Jakubisko, who originally wanted to be a visual artist and cameraman, could then only make documentaries. He returned to cinema screens in 1979 with the film Build a House, Plant a Tree.

In the 1990s, he made It's Better to Be Wealthy and Healthy Than Poor and Ill and An Ambiguous Report about the End of the World, which was screened at more than 60 festivals worldwide and won four Czech Lions.

The adaptation of the legend of the Lady of Čachtice Bathory, which, with a budget of about CZK 350 million, was one of the most expensive films in the Czech Republic and Central Europe, won Jakubisko the Czech Lion for Best Art Direction and became the most successful film of 2008.

Jakubisko's last completed film is a fairy tale. Jakubisko postponed the premiere of The Feather Fairy and the Two Worlds due to the covid, and edited and improved his new film until the last minute, but according to the distribution company Bontonfilm, it is ready for this year's premiere. No exact date has been set.

Other partners
Newsletter

First-hand brews throughout the year.
Be among the first to learn about upcoming events and other news. We only send the newsletter when we have something to say.

Follow us on the web:

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
is part of the KVIFF Group family, which covers other projects as well:

© 2025 KVIFF GROUP

Rules for Visitors / Website visitors privacy policy / GTC / Personal Data Protection / Rules for Claim / Rules and Regulations / Festival team