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- Production Designer
After studying at the Institute of Industrial Arts and the Marionette Faculty of the Prague Academy of Fine Arts in the 1950s, Jan Svankmajer started working as a theatre director, chiefly in association with the Theatre of Masks and the Black Theatre. He first experimented with film-making after becoming involved with the multimedium productions of Prague's Lanterna Magika Theatre. He began making short films in 1964, and continued working in the same medium for over twenty years, when he finally achieved his long-held ambition to make a feature film based on Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (Alice (1988)). He has also exhibited his drawings, collages and 'tactile sculptures', many of which were produced in the mid-1970s, when he was temporarily banned from film-making by the Czech authorities. He has been a card-carrying member of the Prague Surrealist Group since 1969.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Born in precisely the kind of small-town American setting so familiar from his films, David Lynch spent his childhood being shunted from one state to another as his research scientist father kept getting relocated. He attended various art schools, married Peggy Lynch and then fathered future director Jennifer Lynch shortly after he turned 21. That experience, plus attending art school in a particularly violent and run-down area of Philadelphia, inspired Eraserhead (1977), a film that he began in the early 1970s (after a couple of shorts) and which he would work on obsessively for five years. The final film was initially judged to be almost unreleasable weird, but thanks to the efforts of distributor Ben Barenholtz, it secured a cult following and enabled Lynch to make his first mainstream film (in an unlikely alliance with Mel Brooks), though The Elephant Man (1980) was shot through with his unique sensibility. Its enormous critical and commercial success led to Dune (1984), a hugely expensive commercial disaster, but Lynch redeemed himself with the now classic Blue Velvet (1986), his most personal and original work since his debut. He subsequently won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival with the dark, violent road movie Wild at Heart (1990), and achieved a huge cult following with his surreal TV series Twin Peaks (1990), which he adapted for the big screen, though his comedy series On the Air (1992) was less successful. He also draws comic strips and has devised multimedia stage events with regular composer Angelo Badalamenti. He had a much-publicized affair with Isabella Rossellini in the late 1980s.- Writer
- Director
- Cinematographer
Quentin Dupieux was born on 14 April 1974 in Clamart, Hauts-de-Seine, France. He is a writer and director, known for Rubber (2010), Deerskin (2019) and Reality (2014).- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Aleksey Balabanov was born on 25 February 1959 in Sverdlovsk, Sverdlovskaya oblast, RSFSR, USSR [now Ekaterinburg, Russia]. He was a director and writer, known for Brother (1997), Cargo 200 (2007) and Of Freaks and Men (1998). He was married to Irina ? and Nadezhda Vasileva. He died on 18 May 2013 in Solnechnoye, Leningradskaya oblast, Russia.- Writer
- Director
- Actor
Alejandro Jodorowsky was born in Tocopilla, Chile on February 17, 1929. In 1939 he moved to Santiago where he attended university, was a circus clown and a puppeteer. In 1953 he went to Paris and studied mime with Marcel Marceau. He worked with Maurice Chevalier there and made a short film, La cravate (1957). He also befriended the surrealists Roland Topor and Fernando Arrabal, and in 1962 these three created the "Panic Movement" in homage to the mythical god Pan. As part of this group Jodorowsky wrote several books and theatrical pieces. In the later 1960s he directed avant-garde theater in Paris and Mexico City, created the comic strip "Fabulas Panicas", and made his first "real" film, the surrealist love story Fando and Lis (1968), based on a play by Arrabal. In 1971, El Topo (1970) was released and became a cult classic, as did The Holy Mountain (1973). In 1975 he returned to France to begin work on a film that was never made: a colossal adaptation of Frank Herbert's "Dune", which was to star Orson Welles, Salvador Dalí and others, was to be scored by Pink Floyd, and which brought together the visionary talents of H.R. Giger, Dan O'Bannon, and 'Jean "Moebius' Giraud' (Giger and O'Bannon later collaborated on Alien (1979).) The project's financiers backed out, and "Dune" was eventually filmed by David Lynch. Jodorowsky's next film was 1979's Tusk (1980), a story of a young girl's friendship with an elephant, which quickly faded into obscurity. In the early 1980s he began working with Moebius and other artists on various comic strips, graphic novels and cartoons, and wrote several more books. He returned to film with 1989's Santa Sangre (1989), which was critically acclaimed and widely distributed. In 1990 he directed Omar Sharif and Peter O'Toole in the fantasy film The Rainbow Thief (1990). Throughout the 1990s he continued to produce cartoons with a variety of graphic artists and is reportedly to begin work on another film, the long-awaited "Sons Of El Topo", sometime in 2002 or 2003. Jodorowsky's wife Valerie and sons Brontis, Axel and Adan have all at times appeared in his films.- Writer
- Director
- Actor
Junji Ito was born on 31 July 1963 in Gifu, Japan. He is a writer and director, known for Tomio (2011), Death Stranding (2019) and Partition (2000). He has been married to Ayako Ishiguro since 2006. They have two children.- Writer
- Director
- Sound Department
Ben Hopkins was born in 1969 in Hong Kong. He is a writer and director, known for The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz (2000), Simon Magus (1999) and Pazar - Bir Ticaret Masali (2008).- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Peter Greenaway trained as a painter and began working as a film editor for the Central Office of Information in 1965. Shortly afterwards he started to make his own films. He has produced a wealth of short and feature-length films, but also paintings, novels and other books. He has held several one-man shows and curated exhibitions at museums world-wide.- Writer
- Director
- Animation Department
René Laloux was born on 13 July 1929 in Paris, France. He was a writer and director, known for Fantastic Planet (1973), Time Masters (1982) and Les escargots (1966). He died on 14 March 2004 in Angoulême, Charente, France.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Jason Steele was born on 7 February 1985 in the USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Detective Heart of America: The Final Freedom (2015), Llamas with Hats (2009) and Charlie the Unicorn (2005).- Director
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Born in Kraków, Poland, in 1925. Feature film director. Graduated in 1946 from Cracow Film Institute, also studied painting. From 1947 to 1957 made a number of documentary shorts and educational films. Feature film debut: _The Noose_ (Petla, 1958, co-scr.). Other films: _Farewells_ (Pozegnania, 1958, co-scr.), awarded in Locarno and London 1959; _Roommates_ ((Wspolny pokoj, 1960, co-scr.); _Parting_ (Rozstanie, 1961); _Gold_ (Zloto, 1962); _How to Be Loved_ (Jak byc kochana, 1962), Polish Film Critics award, also awarded in San Francisco 1963 and beirut 1964; _The Saragossa Manuscript_ (Pamietnik znaleziony w Saragossie, 1964), awarded in San Sebastian and Edinburgh 1965, in Sitges 1966; _Codes_ (Szyfry, 1966), _The Doll_ (Lalka, 1968, co-scr.), awarded in Panama 1969; _The Sandglass_ (Sanatorium pod Klepsydra, 1973), awarded in Cannes 1973, Grand Prix in Trieste 1974.- Director
- Actor
- Writer
David Firth was born on 23 January 1983 in Doncaster, England, UK. He is a director and actor, known for Salad Fingers (2004), Burnt Face Man (2004) and Jerry Jackson (2005).- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Terry Gilliam was born near Medicine Lake, Minnesota. When he was 12 his family moved to Los Angeles where he became a fan of MAD magazine. In his early twenties he was often stopped by the police who suspected him of being a drug addict and Gilliam had to explain that he worked in advertising. In the political turmoil in the 60's, Gilliam feared he would become a terrorist and decided to leave the USA. He moved to England and landed a job on the children's television show Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967) as an animator. There he met meet his future collaborators in Monty Python: Terry Jones, Eric Idle and Michael Palin. In 2006 he renounced his American citizenship.- Writer
- Director
- Actor
Pier Paolo Pasolini achieved fame and notoriety long before he entered the film industry. A published poet at 19, he had already written numerous novels and essays before his first screenplay in 1954. His first film Accattone (1961) was based on his own novel and its violent depiction of the life of a pimp in the slums of Rome caused a sensation. He was arrested in 1962 when his contribution to the portmanteau film Ro.Go.Pa.G. (1963) was considered blasphemous and given a suspended sentence. It might have been expected that his next film, The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964) (The Gospel According to St. Matthew), which presented the Biblical story in a totally realistic, stripped-down style, would cause a similar fuss but, in fact, it was rapturously acclaimed as one of the few honest portrayals of Christ on screen. Its original Italian title pointedly omitted the Saint in St. Matthew). Pasolini's film career would then alternate distinctly personal and often scandalously erotic adaptations of classic literary texts: Oedipus Rex (1967) (Oedipus Rex); The Decameron (1971); The Canterbury Tales (1972) (The Canterbury Tales); Arabian Nights (1974) (Arabian Nights), with his own more personal projects, expressing his controversial views on Marxism, atheism, fascism and homosexuality, notably Teorema (1968) (Theorem), Pigsty and the notorious Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975), a relentlessly grim fusion of Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy with the 'Marquis de Sade' which was banned in Italy and many other countries for several years. Pasolini was murdered in still-mysterious circumstances shortly after completing the film.- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Ferdinand Khittl was born on 20 January 1924 in Frantiskovy Lázne, Czechoslovakia. He was a director and writer, known for Das magische Band (1960), Eine Stadt feiert Geburtstag (1959) and Auf geht's (1956). He died on 28 February 1976.