Milena Jelinek

Milena Jelinek (Czech: Milena Jelínková, née Tobolová; August 19, 1935 – April 15, 2020) was a Czech American screenwriter, playwright and teacher. She wrote the screenplay for the film Forgotten Light, which was awarded three Czech Lions in 1997. Her name is associated with the golden generation of Czech filmmakers, known as Czech New Wave.

Biography Jelinek was born on 19 August 1935 in Přeštice, near Plzeň. From 1955, she studied at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. The film director Ivan Passer was one of her classmates, and the writer Milan Kundera was her literature teacher. During his stay, he decided to visit his old friends in Prague.

In the US, she gradually managed to find a place in the world of film, mainly thanks to another émigré, filmmaker František Daniel. She already knew him from the school in Prague, and met him again at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. The play depicts the life story of the renowned Czech pre-War actor Adina Mandlová.

Jelinek also wrote the libretto for the opera Kafka's Women by Czech composer Jiří Kadeřábek, first staged at the Cell Theater in New York City in 2013.

For the screenplay for the film Zapomenuté světlo (Forgotten Light), she found an inspiration in a short story by the Czech Catholic priest and writer Jakub Deml.

She died in New York on 15 April 2020 of complications from COVID-19, aged 84.