Oscar-winning Czech film director Jiri Menzel has died aged 82 after battling serious health problems for a long time, his wife Olga Menzelová said on Sunday.
Menzel won an Academy Award for the best foreign language film with Closely Watched Trains, a second world war drama, in 1967.
Closely Watched Trains, based on a novel by Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal, was Menzel’s first feature film.
Hrabal became an endless source of inspiration for Menzel, who shot the bittersweet film Larks on a String in 1969, based on Hrabal’s novel.