Biography
František Vláčil was a Czech film director, screenwriter, painter and graphic artist. He studied aesthetics and art history at Masaryk University in Brno between 1945 and 1950, and began working in animation and documentary films before moving to feature films.
He is best known for the medieval epic Marketa Lazarová (1967), on which he served as director, co-writer and story contributor, and the related historical drama The Valley of the Bees (1968). Both films are widely regarded as major works of Czech cinema. Vláčil received the Czech Lion award for lifetime contribution to Czech film and other festival honours for his body of work.
