Swierak, Zdenek

Born in Prague, studied pedagogy at Charles University . In 1989, he was on the jury of the 39th Berlin Film Festival ^[1] .

He was the screenwriter of films such as " Kolya " and "Primary School" , Where the director in both was his son Jan Sverak . With his close friend Ladislav Smolyak, he came up with the popular fictional character (universal genius, inventor, athlete, forensic scientist, poet, writer and philosopher) Jaru Zimrman , who won the Největší Čech vote in 2005, but was disqualified due to his fictitiousness .

Sverac is also an actor, starring in his own comedies. Perhaps one of the most famous first comedies of Sverac can be called "Calculated Happiness" (1974). In 1967, the comedy Marechek, give me a pen! Came out, written by him in collaboration with Smolyak; in the film, they both starred in secondary roles. Many phrases from this film became popular both in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia, and the film itself is very popular among students and teachers of all ages.

International fame came to Zdenek in 1985, when the film " My Central Village " was released. Sverak himself wrote the script and starred in a secondary role. The film in 1987 was nominated for an Oscar as the best foreign film. The next Oscar nomination was in 1992 for the film "Primary School", which shows the school of a small town in the postwar period. Zdenek Swierak played one of the main roles in the film. In the end, in 1997, his film Kolya , which takes place against the backdrop of the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989, won an Oscar as the best foreign film, and was also nominated for a BAFTA award .

• 1966 - Larks on a thread / Skrivánci na niti - actor
• 1970 - Pan, you are the widow / Pane, vy jste vdova! - actor
• 1974 - Calculated Happiness / Jáchyme, hoď ho do stroje! - co-author of the script, actor
• 1976 - On a farm near the forest / Na samotě u lesa - co-author of the script, actor
• 1976 - Marechek, give me a pen! / Marečku, podejte mi pero! - co-author of the script, actor
• 1976 - Long live the spirits! / Ať žijí duchové! - co-author of the script
• 1979 - Brontosaurus / Actor
• 1981 - Run, waiter, run! / Vrchní, prchni! - screenwriter, actor
• 1981 - Natural Disaster / Kalamita - actor
• 1982 - Heartfelt greetings from the globe / Srdečný pozdrav ze zeměkoule - actor
• 1983 - Jara Cimrman lying, sleeping / Jára Cimrman ležící, spící - co-writer, actor
• 1983 - Holiday Snowdrops / Slavnosti sněženek - actor
• 1983 - Honeymoon in Ilya / Svatební cesta do Jiljí - actor
• 1984 - Three Veterans / Tři veteráni - screenwriter
• 1985 - My Central Village / Vesničko má středisková - script, actor
• 1991 - Primary School / Obecná škola - script, actor
• 1994 - The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Soldier Ivan Chonkin / Život a neobyčejná dobrodružství vojáka Ivana Čonkina - script
• 1994 - Battery / Akumulátor 1 - script, actor
• 1996 - Kolya / Kolja - script, actor
• 1997 - Rogue and Princess / Lotrando a Zubejda - script
• 2001 - The Gaping Blue / Tmavomodrý svět - script
• 2007 - Empty packaging / Vratné lahve - script, actor
• 2010 - The Return of Kuki / Kuky se vrací - actor

• Zdenek Swierak on the Internet Movie Database
• overview of Zdeněk Svěrák comedies
• Biography (in Czech)