Director, screenwriter and producer, one of the most distinctive post-revolution Czech directors.
He debuted with the film Whisper (Šeptej, 1996) followed by Loners (Samotáři, 2000), which was produced by his own company Lucky Man Films.
Next came the comedy One Hand Can't Clap (Jedna ruka netleská, 2003) and the film Grandhotel (2006), which premiered at the Berlinale film festival.
His film In the Shadow (Ve stínu, 2012) took all of the main awards at the Czech Film Critics’ Awards and at the annual Czech Lion Awards, and was the Czech Republic’s nominee for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
In 2013, David Ondříček received Variety magazine’s 10 Directors to Watch award, which recognizes the most noteworthy directors of the previous year.
His recent film Zátopek (2021) was also selected as Czech Republic entry for the Oscars 2022.
In December 1941, Czech soldiers Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš parachute into their occupied homeland to assassinate Nazi officer Reinhard Heydrich.
Sir "P" a 90 year old gray parrot, formerly living with Edouard Daladier, the French prime minister responsible for signing the Munich Treaty, comes to Prague to give his "account" of the past events. But can he do it, being just a bird? In a series of weird events sir is kidnapped by a Czech journalist undergoing his midlife crisis. The guy has him publicly say some really controversial statements, causing a diplomatic scandal. At the end of the day it is the French who decide to assassinate their own national hero....And that's only the half of the story.
In the former Czechoslovakia, 1950s, police captain Hakl investigates a jewelry robbery. An opened safe deposit leads to a known burglar. What seems an easy case soon starts to tangle. When he is called off the case, he continues on his own. The investigation leads him onto thin ice. Can he beat a stronger enemy and save his family and his own life?
Grandhotel je místo mezi nebem a zemí. Místo, kudy plují mraky a lidské touhy. Metaforický příběh je zasazený do slavného hotelu tyčícího se nad Libercem. V něm, jako strážný a vězeň zároveň, pracuje Fleischman, údržbář a amatérský meteorolog, který chtěl mít k nebi tak blízko, jak jen mu to život dovolí. A výš to už nejde.
Robert works for a travel agency and helps to arrange scenes from the everyday lives of "ordinary" Czech families as an attraction for Japanese tourists. He also works as a kind of matchmaker and occasionally helps to put together some of his friends. He helps to separate his friend Hanka from Peter, an announcer for an independent radio station who tries to capture "real" life by recording the moments from "reality" and playing them over the air. Vesna, came to Prague from Macedonia because it is according to her the best place for UFOs to land, but her real reason for coming is somewhat different... Hanka is followed by the crazy Ondrej, until then a respected brain surgeon, and married with two kids. Through him she meets Jacob, who uses copious amounts of weed in order to be constructive in this gloomy world. On the other hand, this destroys his short-term memory - and he forgets that he already has a girlfriend...
Anna, a 16 year-old girl from the sticks, trades her military education for life in the big city Running away to Prague opens a whole new world where she drinks her first cappuccino and meets the kind of people she has only seen in movies.
A story of love and honor that takes place during the mid-nineteenth century during revolutions, as well as economic, political, and social hypocrisy. Two extraordinary but lonely artists share a passionate love, as evidenced by the preserved letters that they exchanged.