Dušan Hanák (April 27, 1938 in

Bratislava Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...

) is a Slovak film director. Hanák graduated from the FAMU (Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts) in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

in 1965. He began with a series of shorts at the Koliba film studios in

. Several of them received awards, and so did his first

feature film A feature film or feature-length film (often abbreviated to feature), also called a theatrical film, is a film (Film, motion picture, "movie" or simply “picture”) with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole present ...

''322'' (the code for cancer in medical records of diseases, 1969).

Career

Hanák followed ''322'' with the feature-length documentary ''Pictures of the Old World'' (''Obrazy starého sveta,'' 1972), partly a meditation on what lies hidden beneath the concept of "an authentic life", a theme already addressed in ''322''. Although Hanák was treated with suspicion by the more repressive communist authorities that took over after the

Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP), formally the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance (TFCMA), was a Collective security#Collective defense, collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Polish People's Republic, Poland, between the Sovi ...

invasion of Czechoslovakia, he found an early refuge in a topic sufficiently removed from big politics to survive on the margins of official production while reaching wide international appeal. In one section, an old man talks with great fascination and lucidity about space travel, recalling how two astronauts walked on the Moon and collected rocks while a third circled in their spaceship. Tacked to the wall of his crumbling shack is a small photograph of men walking on the Moon. It is a work whose images could apply to

Appalachia Appalachia ( ) is a geographic region located in the Appalachian Mountains#Regions, central and southern sections of the Appalachian Mountains in the east of North America. In the north, its boundaries stretch from the western Catskill Mountai ...

or any other poor region. ''Pictures of the Old World'' was ordered shelved a brief theatrical run. Yet despite the authorities' surly take on Hanák's films, his next venture, ''Rosy Dreams,'' turned out to be another original work. His film '' I Love, You Love'' won the

Silver Bear for Best Director The Silver Bear for Best Director () is an award presented annually at the Berlin International Film Festival since 1956. It is given for the best achievement in directing and is chosen by the International Jury from the films in the Competition ...

at the 39th Berlin International Film Festival.

Filmography

* '' 322'' (1969) * '' Pictures of the Old World'' (1972) * '' Rosy Dreams'' (1977) * '' Silent Joy'' (1985) * '' I Love, You Love'' (1989) * ''

Private Lives ''Private Lives'' is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It concerns a divorced couple who, while honeymooning with their new spouses, discover that they are staying in adjacent rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetuall ...

'' (1990) * '' Paper Heads'' (1995)

References

External links

Slovak Movie Database
* * Dušan Hanák (director

, 1969. (Clip.) {{DEFAULTSORT:Hanak, Dusan 1938 births Living people Slovak film directors Silver Bear for Best Director recipients Academy of Performing Arts in Prague alumni