Jaromil Jireš

Jaromil JIREŠ (1935-2001, Czechoslovakia) was a director associated with the Czechoslovak New Wave. Born in Bratislava, modern-day Slovakia, he moved to Prague to study at the FAMU Film School. One of his most prominent works was The Joke (1969), which satirically took on the totalitarianism of the Czechoslovak communist regime, and was banned until 1989 by the government in response. In the 1970s and '80s he worked on art documentaries, but returned to the international scene in 1991 following the fall of the communist regime with Labyrinth (1991). He died in 2001, aged 65.