Oil Gobblers

Jan Svěrák (1965, Žatec) is one of the most internationally successful Czech directors of our time also thanks to his student mystification documentary Oil Gobblers (Ropáci, 1988), which won the student’s Academy Award, and feature film Kolja (1996), which apart from an Oscar for the best non-English speaking film got a BAFTA nomination and the European Film Award. He is the son of Zdeňek Svěrák, an actor ans screenwriter, and he collaborated with his father on his feature debut The Elementary School (Obecná škola, 1991, Oscar nomination), as well as on a war story The Dark Blue World (Tmavomodrý svět, 2001). Jan Svěrák graduated from the Film and TV School of Performing Arts in 1988 as a documentary director and has demonstrated his interest in original confrontation with Hollywood mainstream production, for example by his documentary Space Odyssey II. (Vesmírná odysea II, 1986). He is the director of action comedy Accumulator (Akumulátor I, 1994), roadmovie The Ride (Jízda, 1994 - the Crystal Globe at IFF KV) and a documentary about his father, called Daddy (Tatínek, 2004). His films Empties  (Vratné lahve,2006),, Kooky (Kuky se vrací, 2010) and Three Brothers (Tři bratři, 2014) have also seen great succes.