Olga Strusková

Olga Strusková studied philology at the Charles University in Prague and followed this in modern literature and art at London University. She is author of over 60 television and film documentaries that have been awarded a number of prizes both in the Czech Republic and abroad and have been screened at festivals all around the world. Olga has contributed to four Czech-Japanese feature co-productions, including Tokio: on the City, which was nominated for the prestigious Emmy Awards, a TV version of the Oscars. Strusková was the first foreign author to be awarded the Hoso - Bunka Foundation Prize in Japan, 1990. She is the author of books Letters from Japan, Children from the Planet D. S. and two monographs on the sculptor Marie Uchytilová, Hello, Statues and It’s Not About Me. Olga Strusková co-authored memoirs about Frank Towen, My Life with the Dance and the exceptionally successful book The Method of Ludmila Mojžíšová. Olga translated the book Flying Lessons by the Israeli author Nava Semel. She has worked for theatre since 1996. Strusková directed the music drama Esther, staged Nava Semel’s monodrama Jotam, the Eternal Child, a scenic variety show of modern Hebrew poetry called The Candlestick in the Desert. She co-authored, with Jacob Luria, the Theresienstadt “retro-cabaret” Let Live Life! and also re-wrote and directed the cabaret The Club of Lost Talents, originally staged in Theresienstadt. In Czech premiere she staged monodramas Shimon by the Israeli author Yitzhak Bar-Yosef and Frida K. by the Spanish author Gloria Montero. Her play A Boy from the Planet D.S. was inspired by The Little Prince. A play about the last days of Edith Piaf, The Death in Pink, directed by Olga Strusková, is currently staged in Palác Akropolis.

Olga is now preparing together with famous Czech animator Pavel Koutský her next film entitled The Terezin Gravediggers.

filmography

1983 – I’ll Say It with the Rose (a documentary on Lidice)

1989 – The Rainbow Village (a feature film in co-production with NHK Tokyo)

1990 – The Paradise Garden (a feature film in co-production with NHK Tokyo)

1993-1996 – A Story of a Monument (a time-lapse documentary about the Monument of Child Victims in Lidice)

1998 – Be Well, Butterfly… (a documentary on theatre in Theresienstadt)

2000 – We’ve Survived, Excuse Us… (a documentary on hidden Jewish children)

2001 – In the Footsteps of Jan Letzel (co-production with NHK Hiroshima)

2005 – Mitsuko Aoyama, a Duchess from Ronsperg (co-production with NHK Tokyo)

2007 – Traces of Stars (a documentary on teaching about the holocaust in Czech schools)

2010 – When Bridge Statues Come to Life (statues from the Charles Bridge come to life in a ballet by mentally handicapped persons from the Oáza Studio)