Bohdan Sláma

'Bohdan Sláma' (qv) was born in Opava, a city in the Northern Czech Republic (then Czechcoslovakia) on 29 May 1967. Thirty years later, in 1997, Sláma graduated from the FAMU, Prague's Faculty of Cinema. During his student years, he made a short, "Zahradka Raj" (Garden of Paradise, 1994) which was shown at the Premiers Plans d'Angers Film Festival, in the School Film Section. His first feature, _Wilde Bienen (2001)_ (qv) (Wild Bees), the portrait of a Moravian village and its quirky inhabitants, was distinguished by no fewer than ten international prizes. Four years later, the sensitive chronicle of a group of friends in a drab industrial town, made _Die Jahreszeit des Glücks (2005)_ (qv) another prizewinner. Beautiful too was _The Country Teacher (2008)_ (qv), the story of a teacher from Prague who decides to teach in the country. A name to remember, 'Bohdan Sláma' (qv) is one of the major talents of the Czech cinema.::Guy Bellinger