Štefan Uher

Who was Štefan Uher?

Štefan Uher was a Slovak film director, one of the founders of the "Czechoslovak New Wave".

He graduated from the FAMU in Prague in 1955. Among his fellow students were future directors Martin Hollý Jr. and Peter Solan who also began to work at the Koliba film studios in Bratislava after graduation.

Uher first worked in the short film division. The Sun in a Net was his second feature film. His first one was We from Study Group 9-A about the life of a group of 15-year-old students and their school.

Uher followed The Sun in a Net by two more films with the same author-screenwriter Alfonz Bednár and cameraman − Stanislav Szomolányi, later professor of cinematography at the University of Performing Arts, Bratislava: The Organ, and Three Daughters.

The original music score in The Sun in a Net is by the composer Ilja Zeljenka, who also worked with Uher on We from Study Group 9-A, and went on to work with him on six more films.

Uher's and Szomolányi's last film She Grazed Horses on Concrete has remained one of Slovakia's most popular domestic productions through the 2000s. The film was entered into the 13th Moscow International Film Festival where it won the Silver Prize.