Diamonds of the Night

Jan Němec was born in Prague in 1936. He was a part of a group of students to emerge from the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) straight into an occupied Czechoslovakia. In response, the Czechoslovak New Wave was born. He presented his first feature and vision of the Holocaust in Diamonds of the Night (1965). In the West, one of  director’s best known films is Report on the Party and the Guests (1966), a controversial, unflinching satire of communist ideals versus brutal reality. Later he created Martyrs of Love (1966), documentaries Oratorio for Prague (1968) and Late Night Talks with Mother (2001).