Miroslav Ondříček


The highly acclaimed Czech cameraman Miroslav Ondříček, co-creator of around forty feature length films.

Richard Crudo, Chairman of the American Association of Cameramen, said about him:

“He was born with the soul of an artist, and he mastered the skills needed to express himself as a cinematographer. He is a source of inspiration for filmmakers with unrealized dreams in every part of the world.”

Ondricek stood behind the camera on the film sets of the famous films of Forman and Passer from the 1960s; with Forman he continued to collaborate as director of photography on the famous American film productions Hair, Valmont, Ragtime and Amadeus. For the two last films, he earned Oscar nominations. He also worked with the Czech directors, Krejčík and Vavra, the English director Anderson, and the American directors Mendel, Hill and Marshall.

In the year 2000 Ondricek won a Czech Lion, the most prestigious Czech film and television award, for his contribution to Czech film. Three years earlier, he was awarded for his lifetime’s contribution to film at the film festival of Bitola in Macedonia. In 2004 Ondricek received the American Society of Cinematographers International Achievement Award for his lifetime contribution to international cinematography. It was only for the second time a filmmaker from Central and Eastern Europe had been honored by the American Association. This prize can be regarded as the highest recognition that Ondříček has yet received.

“I appreciate this, you know that! I didn’t get the prize from the American Association as an American cinematographer, I receive this international award for a life’s work, it is the endgame before my departure to the eternal hunting grounds. It is the highest award you can receive because it is awarded to you by your peer cinematographers. It stands for my 40 years behind the camera, and my years in film, altogether 54 years – that’s a lot, isn’t it? And when people from the other side of the world notice that, it is great!”

After the Second World War, he started as a young man in the film industry from scratch; he worked as an extra and then he was given an apprentice position in the laboratory of the Barrandov Studios in Prague, where he gained knowledge about chemistry and film emulsion that would be crucial to his later success. “What I learned then about the chemical processes behind the development of film is as important as all the technical lessons I have learned since,” he says.

Soon after, he became an assistant cameraman and at the end of the 1950s he finished evening film school at FAMU in Prague. In this period, he developed his own way of working with the camera and acquired mastery over the film technology of that time. In the last decade, technology has rapidly changed. “It was easier to begin in the 1960s, when cinematography was not as sophisticated from a technical point of view as today. Today’s data carriers are so evolved that you can watch a film anywhere, even on your wristwatch. The 21st century is the visual era, everything is communicated with pictures…so I don’t know, what the future of the cinematographer will be. But one thing I know for sure, that is whatever form of media you use, you cannot create anything without ideas and eyes. And whoever has ideas and eyes will probably get somewhere,” says Miroslav Ondricek, who is a big fan of young film talent with whom he is always willing to share his life experiences. Or, to capture the essence of film making in his own words: “It is the same small budget or big budget. You must make it good. You must be perfect regardless of having a lot of money or no money. When I was developing working in cinematography I always thought to myself I have to work with the story. My job is to tell the story.”