Slovak film director Jakubisko, 'Fellini of the East', passes away

Slovak film director Juraj Jakubisko, who was named the best director of the 20th century in his country and dubbed the "Fellini of the East", has died at the age of 84, Slovak public broadcaster RTVS said on Saturday.

Jakubisko died in Prague, where he lived, his daughter told RTVS.

The director studied film in the 1960s in Prague, joining a generation of Czechoslovak New Wave film-makers and released his feature debut, the autobiographical The Prime of Life (Kristove Roky), in 1967.

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His films were banned after the 1968 Prague Spring, a brief period of liberalisation in then Communist-ruled Czechoslovakia, was halted.

Jakubisko returned to feature film-making in the 1980s, with Federico Fellini’s wife, Giulietta Masina, starring in his fairy tale Perinbaba in 1985.

He released Bathory, his first English-language film, in 2008 to tell the story of Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory, thought to be one of the world's most notorious serial killers.

After that, he turned his attention more to producing.