Prague, May 10 (CTK) – The Society of Arts & Sciences Prague branch awarded nine personalities, including film-makers Juraj Herz and Vojtech Jasny, artist Adolf Born, choreographer Jiri Kylian and Science Academy (AV) President Jiri Drahos, for their promotion of Czech science and culture abroad yesterday.
The awards were presented in the seat of the Senate, the upper house of Czech parliament, for the 15th time in a row.
Slovak-born Herz, 81, who was working in Germany, mainly for TV, and Czech-born Jasny, 90, living and working in the United States since 1984, rank among the main protagonists of the Czechoslovak New Film Wave of the 1960s.
Herz’s film Spalovac mrtvol (The Cremator, 1969), a dark horror comedy set in a family of a crematorium owner in the 1930s, anticipating the Holocaust, is considered one of the best Czechoslovak films in history.
Jasny’s film Az prijde kocour (The Cassandra Cat, 1963) won a Special Jury Prize at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival and his masterpiece, Vsichni dobri rodaci (All My Good Countrymen, 1968), which was banned by the communist regime then, received the Best Director award in Cannes.
Painter and illustrator Born, 85, became popular with his illustrations of fairy-tales, fables and children’s books adapted into animated series. He also designed theatre sets and costumes. His works were exhibited all over he world.
Kylian, 69, who won an international fame in 1978 with his choreography of Sinfonietta set on music by Leos Janacek. He spent years in the Netherlands where he became artistic director and choreographer of the Nederlands Dans Theater in the Hague in 1976-1999.
Other awards of the Society of Arts & Sciences Prague went to actor Vaclav Postranecky, physical chemist Pavel Jungwirth, opera director Jiri Nekvasil, current director of the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre in Ostrava, north Moravia, and theatre theoretician Vera Ptackova.
The Czechoslovak Society of Arts & Sciences (SVU) is an international non-profit organisation supporting Czech and Slovak scientists and artists as well as students staying abroad. The society was established in 1958 by Czech and Slovak expatriates living in the United States. Its local groups operate all over the world.
