STUDENT - Developing film passion

Forman attended the Film and Television Academy of the Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU), which today is rated by the Hollywood Reporter as the best film school in Europe. At the film academy, he studied screenwriting under the famous Czech novelist Milan Kundera, who made him read such books as Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos. The novel left such an impression on him over the years that he later based his movie Valmont on an adaptation of the novel. At school, he also enjoyed the opportunity to see “controversial films” that the general public was banned from seeing and would stay up late at night conversing about the films with his friends. He saw for the first time Miracle in Milan, which became one of his favorite films of all time. The film fascinated him. He enjoyed seeing so many real people on the screen–90 percent of the people in the film were regular people in the background or on the street. Film school enabled him to develop his passion and see a range of films that became a foundation for his filmmaking.
Photo courtesy of Oldřich Škácha