Praška filmska škola

The Prague film school (Serbo-Croatian: Praška filmska škola, Прашка филмска школа), also known as the Czech film school (Serbo-Croatian: Češka filmska škola, Чешка филмска школа) or the Prague wave (Serbo-Croatian: Praški talas, Прашки талас) was a group of Yugoslav film directors who rose to prominence in the 1970s after graduating from the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU). Five prominent Yugoslav directors born from 1944 to 1947 attended classes at FAMU: Lordan Zafranović (b. 1944), Srđan Karanović (b. 1945), Goran Marković (b. 1946), Goran Paskaljević (b. 1947), and Rajko Grlić (b. 1947).Emir Kusturica, who was born is 1954, is sometimes also considered a member of the Praška škola. Cinematographers Živko Zalar (who has worked with Grlić, Karanović and Marković), Predrag Pega Popović (who has worked with Zafranović and Marković), Vilko Filač (who has worked with Kusturica), Valentin Perko, and Pavel Grzinčič, also studied at FAMU.

As they were all FAMU students at the end of 1960s and the beginning of 1970s, the directors of the Praška škola were mostly influenced by the directors of Czechoslovak New Wave, such as Miloš Forman, Jiří Menzel, and Oscar-winning FAMU professors, Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos. The events of the Prague Spring and Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 also strongly influenced the Praška škola and formed the basis for the loosely defined group.