Marek Posival (born 1 April 1963 in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

) is a Czech Canadian screenwriter, producer, actor and film director.

Biography

Posival was born in

in what was then communist Czechoslovakia. He escaped the totalitarian regime in 1983 and lived for a year in a refugee camp in West Germany. He then emigrated to

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

. He attended

York University York University (french: Université York), also known as YorkU or simply YU, is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's fourth-largest university, and it has approximately 55,700 students, 7,0 ...

, earning a Honours BFA in Film Production.

Film career

He is best known as a producer of

feature films A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

, primarily of the thriller, horror or

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...

genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...

. As well, he has produced a large number of Christmas movies. Posival wrote and directed a highly regarded short film called Hold-Up and worked with

Deepa Mehta Deepa Mehta, (; born 1 January 1950) is an Indian-born Canadian film director and screenwriter, best known for her Elements Trilogy, Fire (1996 film), ''Fire'' (1996), ''Earth (1998 film), Earth'' (1998), and ''Water (2005 film), Water'' (2005 ...

as Associate

Producer Producer or producers may refer to: Occupations *Producer (agriculture), a farm operator *A stakeholder of economic production *Film producer, supervises the making of films **Executive producer, contributes to a film's budget and usually does not ...

on the feature film

Water Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...

which was among the five nominees for

Best Foreign Language Film This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards. Best Actor/Best Actress *See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...

at the 2006

Academy Awards The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

. In 2007 he produced a feature film Phantom Punch, a period drama about the life of the controversial heavyweight boxing champion

Sonny Liston Charles L. "Sonny" Liston ( 1930 – December 30, 1970) was an American professional boxer who competed from 1953 to 1970. A dominant contender of his era, he became the world heavyweight champion in 1962 after knocking out Floyd Patterson i ...

, which he produced together with Hassain Zaidi and

Ving Rhames Irving Rameses Rhames (born May 12, 1959) is an American actor. He is best known for his supporting roles as IMF Agent Luther Stickell in the ''Mission: Impossible'' film series and gang kingpin Marsellus Wallace in ''Pulp Fiction''. He also ap ...

. A script penned by Posival,

The Tortured ''The Tortured'' is a 2010 Canadian-American horror-thriller film directed by Robert Lieberman, written by Marek Posival, and starring Erika Christensen, Jesse Metcalfe, Fulvio Cecere, and Bill Moseley. Plot The film tells the story of a cou ...

, which was directed by

Robert Lieberman Robert Lieberman (born July 16, 1947) is an American motion picture and television director. Personal life Lieberman was married from June 27, 1990 to June 7, 2001 to actress Marilu Henner; the divorced couple has two children, Nicholas Morga ...

, was released in 2010. Posival also worked on the project as one of the film's producers, together with

Mark Burg Mark Burg is an American film producer, manager and actor. He is the co-founder of Evolution Entertainment and produced the ''Saw'' film series as well as the CBS television series ''Two and a Half Men''. Biography Burg graduated from the Roy ...

and

Oren Koules Oren Koules (born January 31, 1961) is an American entrepreneur and film producer. He is the co-founder of Evolution Entertainment and produced the ''Saw'' film series as well as the CBS television series ''Two and a Half Men''. Koules is also ...

Twisted Pictures Twisted Pictures is an American production company and a division of Evolution Entertainment that specializes in horror and thriller movies. The company was founded by Evolution's Mark Burg, Oren Koules, and Gregg Hoffman in 2004. The company i ...

.Teaser Trailer For Twisted Pictures The Tortured!
/ref> In 2018 he co-produced

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

, a feature film about the bank heist that gave origin to the term

Stockholm syndrome Stockholm syndrome is a condition in which hostages develop a psychological bond with their captors. It is supposed to result from a rather specific set of circumstances, namely the power imbalances contained in hostage-taking, kidnapping, an ...

, starring

Ethan Hawke Ethan Green Hawke (born November 6, 1970) is an American actor and film director. He has been nominated for four Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award. Hawke has directed three feature films, three off-Broadway plays, and a doc ...

Noomi Rapace Noomi Rapace (; ; born 28 December 1979) is a Swedish actress.Karen Olsson, ''The New York Times Magazine'', 27 May 2012, p. 26. She achieved international fame with her portrayal of Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish film adaptations of the ''Mil ...

and

Mark Strong Mark Strong (born Marco Giuseppe Salussolia; 5 August 1963), is a British actor, best known for his film roles such as Prince Septimus in '' Stardust'' (2007), Archibald in ''RocknRolla'' (2008), Lord Henry Blackwood in ''Sherlock Holmes'' (20 ...

. Between 2010 and 2021 he has served as producer or executive producer on over thirty Christmas-themed films for television. He is married to the talent agent Karen Williams-Posival of The Characters Talent Agency. They have a production company MP Productions where they develop feature film properties. Posival's trademark plot-line tends to involve brutal

violence Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or Power (social and p ...

interrupting the banal lives of people inclined to "go with the flow." He has also directed numerous

commercials A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produce ...

and was a regular on a TV series

The Best Years ''The Best Years'' is a Canadian drama television series about a group of college students at Charles University, a fictional Ivy League school in Boston, Massachusetts. It stars Charity Shea as Samantha Best, an orphan who lived in the foster c ...

Notes

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Posival, Marek 1963 births Living people Male actors from Prague Czech screenwriters Male screenwriters Czechoslovak emigrants to Canada Czech film producers Czech television producers Czech male television actors York University alumni Film directors from Prague