Věra Plívová-Šimková, director of famous children's films, died at the age of 90

Director Věra Plívová-Šimková, author of films, died at the age of 90 Wow guys, Krakonoš and skiers or How to spin Rosemary. In her films she discovered several later acting stars. For example, moderator and actor Jan Kraus or Marek Vašut started in her films. She made 17 films. In 2018 she won the Czech Lion for her extraordinary contribution to Czech cinema, and in 1999 she won the same award at the Zlín Film Festival.

Věra Šimková-Plívová was born on 29 May 1934 in Lomnice nad Popelkou, she spent her childhood in Chucheln near Semily. Her father soon died and her mother, an actress of amateur theatre, took care of the family. Her older sister Břetislava Pospíšilová-Plívová became an academic painter. Věra graduated from the Jičín grammar school in 1952 and went to Prague to FAMU, where she studied directing under Bořivoj Zeman in 1952-57. Already at the school she spontaneously turned to making films about and for children. During her studies, she made year-long works in which children often appeared. She finished school with a graduation film about amateur theatre artists. Before the curtain fallswhich she made with non-actors from her own script in her hometown.

In the same year she joined Barrandov, where she gained experience as an assistant director under her older colleagues. For example, she participated in the filming of Touha, King of Sumava a Dreams for Sunday. While assisting in the production of a children's detective story The case of Lupinek has definitely decided to devote herself to children's art. She made her debut as an independent director in 1963 with a medium-length film set in a dance Boys, come in. from his own script. A year later, he followed it up with a successful film Katya and the Crocodile based on a children's book by Soviet writers N. V. Gernetova and G. B. Jagdfeld. She wrote the script with Ota Hofman. The film was originally to be directed by Jan Valášek, but he fell ill. The film won the International Children's Film Show in Gijon. It started a long string of festival successes for the director, which became a rule both at home and abroad.

Lyrical comedy Tony, you're out of your mind. from 1968 described the relationship between an old abandoned man and an orphaned child who manages to smuggle three siblings from an orphanage into a country cottage. This was followed in 1970 by a film set in a rural setting Foxes, Mice and Hangman about two guys competing for leadership in a gang. Two years later, the first color film About Snow White - the story of village children from the Podkrkonoší region who decided to act out a well-known fairy tale. Film The pilgrimage has come to us from 1973 was a children's musical set in a village fair. In 1975, the director made a successful film Wow, guys. based on a script by his colleague Vít Olmer, who used the motifs of Mark Twain's famous book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and transferred the story to a Czech town in 1900. It was the first film set in the past. After two more years, Věra Šimková-Plívová made a film from the filmmaking environment called How to spin Rosemary. In 1979 she focused on environmental protection and made a film Brontosaurus. Comedy Krakonoš and skiers for a change was about boy rivalry in the Podkrkonoší region at the beginning of the 20th century. The story was based on smuggling legends and among other things illuminated the beginnings of skiing in our country.

The director became the most successful creator of feature films about children in Czechoslovakia. Her work is characterised by several typical features. They are usually original films based on their own themes and scripts, based on a typically childlike perception of the world and characterised by a kind and understanding approach to life. Her stories are often inspired by children's play, with themes of rivalry between boy bands, friendship, first love, minor misunderstandings and adult disguises. These are not fairy tales, but real-life stories of boys and girls. The target audience is mainly children aged 11-14. She mostly sets her stories in a contemporary village setting, almost all of her films were shot in the area where she lives. Her life's work was rewarded at the Sochi Film Festival, where she received the award for her contribution to global children's film.

In 1974, the director returned to the land of her childhood. She lived in the village of Chuchelna near Semily, where her grandparents and father came from and where she met her husband, with whom she built a house in the village. She lived there with her son Tomáš and his family. Next to her son she has a daughter Katerina, she was a grandmother six times over. She also directed theatre performances by local amateur actors in the village.

Until 1991 she was an employee of the Barrandov film studio, after which she worked as a theatre director. She reworked her scripts into six film novels, which she published in book form. In addition, she wrote two fairy tale stories for older children - Division a The Wolves. Occasionally she contributed to a number of magazines, such as Vlasta, Kino, Literary Monthly, Film a doba and many others. In total, she made 17 films, the last of which was in 2001. Circle. During her fifty years of experience in film, she discovered many child stars who later became acclaimed actors and actresses.

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