Miloš Forman

Jan Tomáš “Miloš” Forman (Czech: ; 18 February 1932 – 13 April 2018) was a Czech and American film director, screenwriter, actor, and professor. He rose to fame in his native Czechoslovakia before emigrating to the United States in 1968. Over a career spanning six decades, Forman won two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, three Golden Globe Awards, a Golden Bear, a César Award, and the Czech Lion. Forman was an important figure in the Czechoslovak New Wave. Film scholars and Czechoslovak authorities saw his 1967 film The Firemen’s Ball as a biting satire on Eastern European Communism.

The film was initially shown in theatres in his home country in the more reformist atmosphere of the Prague Spring. However, it was later banned by the Communist government after the invasion by the Warsaw Pact countries in 1968. Forman was subsequently forced to leave Czechoslovakia for the United States, where he continued making films. He received two Academy Awards for Best Director, one for the psychological drama One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and one for the biographical drama Amadeus (1984). During this time, he also directed notable and acclaimed films such as Black Peter (1964), Loves of a Blonde (1965), Hair (1979), Ragtime (1981), Valmont (1989), The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) and Man on the Moon (1999).