Petr Zelenka, Warsaw (Poland), March 23, 2006

Petr Zelenka (born August 21, 1967 in Prague, Czechoslovakia) is a Czech writer and director.

His most notable work is a black comedy, Tales of Common Insanity (Czech: Příběhy obyčejného šílenství), which he personally directed at Dejvické divadlo. He received Alfréd Radok Award for Best Play. The play was later staged in other Czech theatres as well as in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and Germany. It was also published in English and translated to Russian. In 2005 Zelenka made the comedy into a film, released as Wrong Side Up, which won 2 movie festival awards in 2006 and was nominated for 6 other awards. His second most notable play is Teremin, inspired by the life of Russian inventor Léon Theremin.

His 2008 film, Karamazovi, was the Czech Republic's official Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film.

[edit] Selected films

• 2008 - Karamazovi (screenplay and direction)
• 2005 - Wrong Side Up (Příběhy obyčejného šílenství, screenplay and direction), received the Critics Award at the Moscow IFF and the Don Quijote Award at Cottbus
• 2002 – Year of The Devil (Rok ďábla, screenplay and direction), FIPRESCI Prize at the Cottbus IFF, six Czech Lion Awards including Best film and Best director, Prize Trieste at Trieste film festival
• 2000 – Loners (Samotáři, co-author of screenplay)
• 1997 – Buttoners (Knoflíkáři, screenplay and direction), winner of a Tiger award at the Rotterdam IFF
• 1996 – Mňága – Happy End (screenplay and direction), won several awards at the film festivals in Cottbus, Plzeň and České Budějovice [1]

[edit] External links

• Short bio plus info about Tales of Common Insanity at divadlo.cz (in English)
• Petr Zelenka at the Internet Movie Database

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