EDITOR’S NOTE: Pavel Jech, our film division chair, recently had the opportunity to spend some time with someone whose work he has admired for quite some time.

Moving to Southern California has meant meeting some Czech people that I normally did not see very often in Prague. Recently I attended an “intimate event” with the legendary director Ivan Passer of Intimate Lighting. Passer has lived here over 40 years.

The Czechoslovak Society of Arts & Sciences in Los Angeles, in cooperation with SOLOFILM Company and the Consulate General of the Czech Republic in Los Angeles, sponsored the gathering at the West Hollywood home of Czech-American filmmaker Pavlina Solo and her husband, Matt Solo, a partner at William Morris.

An eternal storyteller, Ivan Passer captivated us for hours, telling how a trip to the mountains with his frustrated writing partners not only led to literally tossing an unfinished screenplay out the window, but also resulted in a visit to a local pub that inspired the story and was the basis of casting for the landmark, Oscar-nominated Fireman’s Ball.

passer and pavel

Passer also related how leaving Robert Duval in costume while shooting HBO’s Stalin on location at the Kremlin, just after all the fall of the USSR, prompted a visit by the KGB – who whispered in Duval/Stalin’s ear, “We need you back again.”

Even more apropos were Passer’s stories of his errant childhood, where little Ivan was an admitted “poacher.” Fed up with his shenanigans, his father placed the 13-year-old Passer in care of the local judge, who allowed him to sit in on his deliberations as he sentenced the various town-folk to one day in jail for stealing a chicken, or two days for starting a drunken brawl.

When the Communists took over, a suspicious fire struck the local party headquarters. Various civic leaders were dragged in, and the judge was forced to sentence them to the trumped up charges – twelve years, fifteen years, twenty years of hard labor. Ivan never forgot the bright red color of the devastated judge’s face the day he collapsed from a fatal heart attack. \

It was then Ivan Passer vowed to never cooperate with “them,” never even using  the mandatory salutation “comrade,” and ultimately escaping to the USA, the land of freedom.

Overall, the event was extremely informative, and it was a great way to learn a bit more about the man that is Ivan Passer.