Ivan Fíla (b. 1956, Prague) began as assistant to the directors Jan Schmidt and Zdeňek Brynych. In 1977 he emigrated to West Germany, where he studied direction and dramaturgy at the Fachhochschule in Cologne. He established himself as a director with a number of short and feature-length documentaries which won a number of awards. He made his feature debut in 1996, with the psychological drama Lea, starring Lenka Vlasáková in the title role and based on his own script. He was already considering a film about children who become the victims of organised crime at the beginning of the 1990s. The script for King of Thieves was ready in 1992, but a number of problems stood in the way of its realisation until the director – owner of the production company Ivan Fíla Filmproduktion – succeeded in arranging a production alliance with companies from Austria, France, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
MFF Karlovy Vary
