Czech new wave director Ivan Passer dies aged 86

Ivan Passer, the film-maker who was a key figure in the Czech new wave and who went on to direct the thriller Cutter’s Way after emigrating to the US, has died aged 86.

Passer, who was born in Prague in 1933, spent his career inextricably associated with, and to some extent overshadowed by, his friend and fellow Czech director Miloš Forman.

However, Passer never achieved the same success as Forman, whose One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest won multiple Oscars in 1975.