Biography

Director, screenwriter and producer, one of the most distinctive post-revolution Czech directors. He debuted with the film Whisper (Septej, 1996) followed by Loners (Samotari, 2000), which was produced by his own company Lucky Man Films. Next came the comedy One Hand Can't Clap (Jedna ruka netleska, 2003) and the film Grandhotel (2006), which premiered at the Berlinale film festival. His film In the Shadow (Ve stinu, 2012) took all of the main awards at the Czech Film Critics' Awards and at the annual Czech Lion Awards, and was the Czech Republic's nominee for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2013, David Ondricek received Variety magazine's 10 Directors to Watch award, which recognizes the most noteworthy directors of the previous year. David Ondricek worked as an executive producer on the new film by Petr Zelenka Lost in Munich, and Anthropoid by Sean Ellis. In 2018 he directed two-part film Dukla 61, and earned a nomination, together with Ben Stiller and Stephen Frears, for Golden Nymph at Monte-Carlo TV Festival. His latest feature film Zátopek had it's premiere in August 2021 as an opening film of Karlovy Vary International Film Festival where it won the Audience Awards. The success at the festival was followed by an amazing audience response once it hit the cinemas. Zátopek then won several awards in many categories, and was sent by the Czech Republic to compete for the Academy Awards.