If he were to choose today between creating under ideological demands or commercial demands, he would again choose the latter possibility. The famous American film director made, despite that, in the communist Czechoslovakia of the sixties the following films, which belong to the best of our cinematography: Audition (Konkurs, 1963), Black Peter (Černý Petr, 1963), Loves of a Blond (Lásky jedné plavovlásky, 1965), The Firemen’s Ball (Hoří, má panenko, 1967). His fate as a war orphan had thought him to fight the circumstances in a similar way in which the heroes of his multi-Oscar films One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and Amadeus (1984). And also, to believe the ordinary truth and the ordinary people, his intuition and his coworkers and lifelong friends Ivan Passer, Jaroslav Papoušek and Miroslav Ondříček.

In 2008, he ended his fifty-year lasting teaching career, even then he didn’t resign from the idea of another film. First film, The Light Penetrates the Darkness (Světlo proniká tmou), he made as a twenty-year young man in 1931 and since then there have been countless films made by him, feature films and documentaries. He worked in his adult life in all regimes, often as the first and always perfectly prepared director and as a screenwriter. There is no more controversial figure among Czech directors – the creator rising so many exciting emotions, who in the same time made so many key shots in the Czech cinematography. And who as a demanding teacher brought up so many students, his future competitors. He himself in contact with them also recovered, as evidenced by his movies Golden Queen (Zlatá reneta, 1965), Romance for Bugle (Romance pro křídlovku, 1966), The Thirteenth Chamber (Třináctá komnata, 1968) and Witches’ Hammer (Kladivo na čarodějnice, 1969).

This 2009 documentary on Juraj Herz features in-depth interviews and copious clips from the director's work. Interview subjects include film-world luminaries Miloš Forman, Věra Chytilová, Miroslav Ondříček, Otakar Vávra, and more.

He has twice been nominated for an Oscar for the camera in movies Ragtime (1981) and Amadeus (1984), in both cases it was a near thing. Yet no one doubts that he is one of the world’s prominent directors of photography. Since the mid- sixties, however, he stood behind the camera not only in famous films of Miloš Forman, but also of Ivan Passer, Jan Němec, Lindsay Anderson and George Roy Hill. He still believes in the power of cinematic storytelling with light and shadow, and he is attempting to inspire with his beliefs his students at the Film Academy named after Miroslav Ondříček in Písek.

Originally a student of architecture, then a draft person, laboratory technician, model, a film extra, script assistant, assistant director, student of FAMU with Otakar Vávra, and, finally a film director with more than half a century of active career as a filmmaker, agile and almost unbearably provocative, she has always gone to the Ceiling (Strop, 1961) of human possibilities and has almost always made Something Different (O něčem jiném, 1963) than her colleagues. With her uncompromising ways as to the artistic and civilian requirements as well as her in advocating the right to one’s own opinion she was provocative during the past regime (The Daisies /Sedmikrásky/ 1966; The Apple Game /Hra o jablko/, 1976) and cause public displeasure even today (The Traps /Pasti, pasti, pastičky/, 1998; Pleasant Moments /Hezké chvilky bez záruky/, 2006). She is also a mother of two children, a grandmother, and a recipient of lifelong attention.