According to European media reports, Slovak director Juraj Jakubisko died on February 24 in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, at the age of 84.

Jura Yakubisk

In the 1960s and 1970s, Yakubiske was famous in the European film circle for his films such as "The Betrayer and the Tramp". He was also a member of the Czech New Wave film movement, and his works often had a style of magical realism. In 2000, the Slovak media voted as the best Slovak director of the 20th century, and Yakubisk, known as "Eastern European Fellini", won the first place. He is a national treasure-level filmmaker recognized by Slovak critics.

The Betrayal and the Tramp poster

Back in September 2020, when the famous Czech director Eli Manzo, who directed films such as "The Train under Close Surveillance", "The Winged Sparrow", and "I Served the King of England", passed away, some movie fans expressed emotion. In the 1960s, the famous Czechoslovakian film New Wave movement, from Evald Schorm (1931-1988), Pavel Juracek (1935-1989), Stefan Uher (1930-1993), Jaromil Jires (1935-2001), Jan Nemec (1936-2016), Vera Sy Vera Chytilova (1929-2014), Juraj Herz (1934-2018), Milos Forman (1932-2018), Ivan Passer to Eli Manzo, all withered, and only Jura Yakubisk remained at that time. And now, with his passing away, the Eastern European movie miracle that was born that year has finally completely become history.

Jura Yakubisk was born on April 30, 1938 in the small town of Kosov, Slovakia. At the age of 22, he came to Prague to study directing at the Academy of Film and Television (FAMU) at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, where he worked with Ewald Scholm, Vera Ktilova and other future film New Wave participants. They are all classmates.

Young Yakubiysk

In 1967, Yakubisk became a blockbuster with his debut feature film "The Crucial Years", and won the Film Critics' League Award at the Heidelberg Film Festival in West Mannheim. The following year, "The Betrayal and the Tramp", written and directed by him, participated in the 29th Venice Film Festival and won the Best Young Director Award. Affected by the French "May Storm", the Venice Film Festival that year was extremely restless and almost impossible to hold smoothly.

Stills of "The Crucial Years"

In the Czech Republic, the "Prague Spring" came to an abrupt end. Yakubisk, who returned with great honor, was forced to take a back seat, either to shoot short films, documentaries, or to shoot such as "Birds, Orphans and Fools" and "See you in hell, my friend!" "" "Dreams of a House" and other feature-length films, but they were unable to obtain permission to be screened, and were frozen for many years.

"Birds, Orphans and Fools" Stills

In the 1980s, the political atmosphere in the Czech Republic became somewhat relaxed, and Yakubisk gradually gained more creative space. The works "The Millennium Bee Queen" and "Snow White Fairy" were both great successes after their release. In 1992, the Czech Republic and Slovakia peacefully separated their families, and Yakubisk continued to be active in the film circles of the two places, shooting "Nona and Este", "Unclear Report on the End of the World", "Sentimental Animals after Sex" and other films .

Stills of "Snow White Fairy"

Released in the summer of 2008, "Bathory" was the first English-language film directed by Yakubiske since he was a filmmaker, and it was also the masterpiece of his late director career. The film was based on ancient legends and was the Czech film with the highest investment cost at that time. On the eve of the film's release, two members of the production team secretly stole a copy of the film and threatened to leak it on the Internet in advance to extort tens of thousands of dollars from Yakubisk. Fortunately, the local police were strong enough to resolve the extortion incident in time, preventing "The Vampire Countess" from being leaked in advance. After the film was released, it quickly broke many box office records in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and also made Yakubisk the one with the most stamina among the generals of the Czech New Wave.

The Vampire Countess poster