Ján Kadár

Who was Ján Kadár?

Ján Kadár was a Slovak film writer and director. As a filmmaker, he worked in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, the United States, and Canada. Most of his films were directed in tandem with Elmar Klos. The two became best known for their Oscar-winning The Shop on Main Street. As a professor at the FAMU in Prague, Kadár trained most of the directors who spawned the Czechoslovak New Wave in the 1960s.

After moving to the United States, he became professor of film direction at the American Film Institute in Beverly Hills. His personal life as well as his films encompassed and spanned a range of cultures: Jewish, Slovak, Hungarian, Czech, and American.