The Ninth Heart
Czechoslovak-born filmmaker Juraj Herz (1934-2018) created a body of work yet to be discovered, based on fright and the staging of well-known figures from horror cinema, revisited and twisted. In collaboration with Fantasia, we present some of his most important films, recently restored.
One poor student must rescue a diseased princess from the castle of an evil magician, who is preparing an elixir of youth from the stolen hearts of nine children.
Juraj Herz
Juraj Herz (4 September 1934 – 8 April 2018) was a Slovak film director, actor, and scene designer, associated with the Czechoslovak New Wave movement of the 1960s. Herz was born in 1934 in Kežmarok, in modern-day Slovakia, to Jewish parents. He was a Holocaust survivor, having been imprisoned at the Ravensbrück concentration camp during his childhood. He studied photography at the city's University of Applied Arts, going on to study directing and puppetry at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (DAMU) alongside Jan Švankmajer. He remained in Prague after he completed his studies to work at the Semafor Theatre. Herz was self-taught as a film director. His first experience working on films was as second-unit director at the Barandov studios. He made his breakthrough with his 1969 horror/black comedy The Cremator, often cited as one of the best Czechoslovak films of all time, though many of his other films achieved cult status. He then directed for both film and television.
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