Jiří Weiss

Directing

Jiří Weiss

Born 1913-03-29 · Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary [now Czech Republic]

Jiří Weiss (29 March 1913 – 9 April 2004) was a Czech film director, screenwriter, writer, playwright and pedagogue. Jiří Weiss was born to a wealthy Jewish family in Prague. His father was a Czech patriot and named his son after Czech king Jiří of Poděbrady.His parents were Emil Weiss (1880–1942) and Martha Weissová (née Fuchsová; 1882–1944). Emil Weiss owned a liqueur factory in Libeň district. Since his youth, Jiří was an staunch communist, which was at the heart of disputes with his capitalist parents. As a young boy he was friends with Franz Kafka's niece Marianne Pollaková and thanks to her he was able to read the books of then-unknown writer Kafka in the 1920s. Weiss was interested in studying at film school, but his parents wished he studied law. While still a minor, he left his home and lived with his friend K. M. Walló [cs]. Weiss started to work as a copywriter in advertising. His father, who disagreed with his life choices and could still make decisions about his underage son, had him institutionalized in a mental hospital. Weiss never spoke to his father ever again. In his early twenties, he started working as a copywriter for the Prague branch of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. At this time, he wrote his first book – a story for children O věrné Hadimršce. He befriended leading intellectuals of the Left Front in Prague, including Vladislav Vančura and Ivan Olbracht. In 1934, Vančura invited him to be an assistant cinematographer on his movie Marijka the Faithless, based on Olbracht's book.

Acting credits

Behind the camera

No artwork available
4.5

The fate of the insignificant poet Leonard Undene is transposed into the media atmosphere of the late 1960s. An ironic image of the times, a black comedy about the ease of manipulating the crowd, about the deceitfulness of slogans, about the phenomenon called public opinion, about the power of media fame...

Spravedlnost pro Selvina

1968

No artwork available
4.5

The fate of the insignificant poet Leonard Undene is transposed into the media atmosphere of the late 1960s. An ironic image of the times, a black comedy about the ease of manipulating the crowd, about the deceitfulness of slogans, about the phenomenon called public opinion, about the power of media fame...

Spravedlnost pro Selvina

1968

The Golden Fern poster
6.8

Wandering through the forest, a woodcutter finds a golden fern whose seed turns into a beautiful woman - they fall in love. After getting drunk in a village feast, he gets to sign up to the army. The fairy gives him a shirt to wear and asks him to swear he will never abandon it. At the war front, he falls in love with the the colonel's daughter and will have to perform various feats to get her attention.

The Golden Fern

1963

The Golden Fern poster
6.8

Wandering through the forest, a woodcutter finds a golden fern whose seed turns into a beautiful woman - they fall in love. After getting drunk in a village feast, he gets to sign up to the army. The fairy gives him a shirt to wear and asks him to swear he will never abandon it. At the war front, he falls in love with the the colonel's daughter and will have to perform various feats to get her attention.

The Golden Fern

1963

Romeo, Juliet and Darkness poster
6.2

Pavel, a young student living in Prague in 1942, hides a Jewish girl in his apartment building's attic. Amidst the brutality of the occupying German army, love blossoms between the two. He is her only link to the outside world. Then the two are discovered by Pavel's mother, who forces the residents of the apartment building to decide whether Hana can remain.

Romeo, Juliet and Darkness

1960

Romeo, Juliet and Darkness poster
6.2

Pavel, a young student living in Prague in 1942, hides a Jewish girl in his apartment building's attic. Amidst the brutality of the occupying German army, love blossoms between the two. He is her only link to the outside world. Then the two are discovered by Pavel's mother, who forces the residents of the apartment building to decide whether Hana can remain.

Romeo, Juliet and Darkness

1960

90° in the Shade poster
5.7

In a Prague shop, an assistant has been carrying on an affair with the dishonest, married manager. An emotionally repressed auditor with domestic problems of his own uncovers serious stock discrepancies. A test of loyalties and a questioning of values concludes in tragedy.

90° in the Shade

1965

90° in the Shade poster
5.7

In a Prague shop, an assistant has been carrying on an affair with the dishonest, married manager. An emotionally repressed auditor with domestic problems of his own uncovers serious stock discrepancies. A test of loyalties and a questioning of values concludes in tragedy.

90° in the Shade

1965

No artwork available
7.0

The story of a gypsy named Fabian, who came to work in Kunčice, and his son. Their lives change fundamentally on the great construction site of socialism. They both learn to read and write; Fabian becomes a skilled welder, and little Fabian is accepted into the pioneer organization. However, their transformation is not easy, it is not without many encounters, just like the transformation of Fabian's co-workers, many of whom have not yet overcome their racist prejudices.

Můj přítel Fabián

1955

No artwork available
7.0

The story of a gypsy named Fabian, who came to work in Kunčice, and his son. Their lives change fundamentally on the great construction site of socialism. They both learn to read and write; Fabian becomes a skilled welder, and little Fabian is accepted into the pioneer organization. However, their transformation is not easy, it is not without many encounters, just like the transformation of Fabian's co-workers, many of whom have not yet overcome their racist prejudices.

Můj přítel Fabián

1955

No artwork available
NR

A physically disabled lady is alone in her apartment one evening and has just accidentally overheard a conversation about a planned murder...

Promiňte, omyl!

1963

No artwork available
NR

A physically disabled lady is alone in her apartment one evening and has just accidentally overheard a conversation about a planned murder...

Promiňte, omyl!

1963

The Stolen Border poster
5.5

Czech film tells the story of a border town in World War II. Family members and friends become enemies.

The Stolen Border

1947

The Stolen Border poster
5.5

Czech film tells the story of a border town in World War II. Family members and friends become enemies.

The Stolen Border

1947

A Life at Stake poster
6.2

The year is 1941 and the German Nazis rule Bohemia with a free hand. Engineer Otakar Racek is an extremely cautious man who tries to avoid problems at all costs. While some of his colleagues are being arrested by the Gestapo, he receives an offer to become the director of a new department. When he refuses to help the wife of an arrested resistance fighter, his wife Vlasta is shaken. However, she loves him, to the point of even resigning herself to the hatred of Otakar's wealthy mother. One day, Vlasta lets her old acquaintance Ondřej Rýdl, who is on the run from the Gestapo, stay at her house for a few days. The wife passes him off to her husband as a distant relative. However, Otakar succumbs to jealousy and, on his mother's advice, hires a private detective to follow Vlasta. However, the detective is also a Gestapo informant and receives a hefty reward for every arrested resistance fighter...

A Life at Stake

1956

A Life at Stake poster
6.2

The year is 1941 and the German Nazis rule Bohemia with a free hand. Engineer Otakar Racek is an extremely cautious man who tries to avoid problems at all costs. While some of his colleagues are being arrested by the Gestapo, he receives an offer to become the director of a new department. When he refuses to help the wife of an arrested resistance fighter, his wife Vlasta is shaken. However, she loves him, to the point of even resigning herself to the hatred of Otakar's wealthy mother. One day, Vlasta lets her old acquaintance Ondřej Rýdl, who is on the run from the Gestapo, stay at her house for a few days. The wife passes him off to her husband as a distant relative. However, Otakar succumbs to jealousy and, on his mother's advice, hires a private detective to follow Vlasta. However, the detective is also a Gestapo informant and receives a hefty reward for every arrested resistance fighter...

A Life at Stake

1956

The Girl Robinson Crusoe poster
5.7

A thirteen-year-old girl whose mother suddenly dies during the birth of her second child is forced to start taking care not only of herself, but also of her father and newborn brother.

The Girl Robinson Crusoe

1957

Vstanou noví bojovníci poster
7.0

The leader of the emerging organized labor movement in the 1880s, Ladislav Zápotocký-Budečský, is exiled to his native village, where he works as a tailor and continues to raise social awareness among members of the working class.

Vstanou noví bojovníci

1951

No artwork available
NR

Fantasy in which Eliot Makeham wakes up to find Britain occupied by the Nazis.

John Smith Wakes Up

1941

Murder Czech Style poster
4.3

The protagonist (Rudolf Hrusinsky) is a dull, fat, shy government clerk indulging in voyuerism and ego fantasies. In love with another clerk (Kveta Fiolova), he is urged on in his pursuit by a commiserate executive. The story is told in a flashback sequence as the cuckolded Hrusinsky attempts suicide by gassing himself in his bathtub. The "Murder" of the title is not a murder as such, rather the murder that Hrusinsky remembers planning upon discovering his wife's unfaithfulness with his supposed friend and advisor. Both plots failing in his mind, he loses himself in fantastic reveries of his funeral and of hypocritical mourners. ' Deciding (perhaps) that this is not the way out either, he gives up the attempt and imagines a life of reconciliation and eventual affluence.

Murder Czech Style

1967

Murder Czech Style poster
4.3

The protagonist (Rudolf Hrusinsky) is a dull, fat, shy government clerk indulging in voyuerism and ego fantasies. In love with another clerk (Kveta Fiolova), he is urged on in his pursuit by a commiserate executive. The story is told in a flashback sequence as the cuckolded Hrusinsky attempts suicide by gassing himself in his bathtub. The "Murder" of the title is not a murder as such, rather the murder that Hrusinsky remembers planning upon discovering his wife's unfaithfulness with his supposed friend and advisor. Both plots failing in his mind, he loses himself in fantastic reveries of his funeral and of hypocritical mourners. ' Deciding (perhaps) that this is not the way out either, he gives up the attempt and imagines a life of reconciliation and eventual affluence.

Murder Czech Style

1967

No artwork available
4.0

No synopsis available yet.

Die Herberge

1970

No artwork available
4.0

No synopsis available yet.

Die Herberge

1970

Wolf Trap poster
5.6

An orphaned young woman named Jana moves into the household of Robert and his older, possessive wife, Klára. While Klára maintains a strict and manipulative control over the home, a mutual attraction develops between Robert and Jana. The three characters continue to live together as their domestic tensions increase.

Wolf Trap

1958