Vojtech Jasny, an award-winning director from Czechoslovakia who made more than 50 films, has died. He was 93.
Jasny passed away Friday, according to The Associated Press. The director was best known for his 1968 film, All My Good Countrymen [also known as All My Compatriots], about the lives and struggles of Czechs under communist rule. The film was banned in his homeland, but won acclaim abroad and picked up the best director award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1969.
Jasny’s 1963 film The Cassandra Cat won a Cannes special jury prize. Among his many other movies were Desire (1958), The Pipes (1966), The Clown (1976), The Great Land of Small (1987), and Return to Paradise Lost (1999)
Born in 1925, Jasny moved to the West after the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. His father was killed at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.
He moved to the U.S. in the 1980s and taught film directing at Columbia University for several years, before returning home.