“In the afternoon, our pedagogue, a prominent documentary filmmaker and thinker, Professor Karel Vachek, died,” said Slováková. The school also informs about Vachek’s death on its Facebook page.
–
Vachek graduated from FAMU and with the graduate film Moravská Hellas (1963) he had difficulty reaching the audience due to his nonconformity. The film won two main prizes in Oberhausen and an Honorable Mention at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival before being banned by the then President Antonín Novotný. In 1968, Vachek made the film Related to the Choice about the backstage election of General Ludvík Svoboda as President of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
–
He returned to film only after the revolution in 1989, and a year later won the prestigious Berlinale Kamera award. In 2015, he received a gold medal from the Academy of Performing Arts (AMU), which is the highest award that the school awards to important Czech and foreign personalities who have taught at the academy. For example, directors Jan Švankmajer, Věra Chytilová and Ivan Passer received it on behalf of FAMU.
–
His pedagogical work is also significant, which was reflected in the work of leading documentary filmmakers of the younger generation. For example, Filip Remunda, Vít Klusák, Theodora Remundová and Martin Mareček. At the same time, Vachek claimed that his films are all the same, about the same thing, and that he has no students.
—
