Michal Krejci - Director of Photography

Background


I grew up in Prague, one of the world's most celebrated cities of art and culture. My parents and my brother are all accomplished artists in their own fields. Living in an artistically talented family and absorbing the cultural vitality of Prague, I was inevitably drawn to art as a career.

I was the first member of my family to specialise in film, a medium through which I could express my personality. Film enabled to find harmony in the situations which I photographed and harmony with people around me, whether family, friends or even people on a film set. But the Prague of my student days and of my first professional activities languished under the totalitarian control of the Communist Party. Fortunately even the Communists could not stifle all cultural expression, but it was nevertheless a harsh training ground for my fellow artists and myself. But many of us learnt a precious skill which is still greatly to our advantage today: we learnt to improvise, to develop the ability to solve almost any task with minimal means.
I left Prague in 1983 and settled in Denmark. Since then I have worked continuously as a freelance cameraman on assignments that have taken me all over the world.
In 2003 I relocated to England and in 2004 I moved my main base to Prague.
In addition to my native Czech, I speak Danish and English fluently and have a good command of Italian. This is a wholly advantageous group of languages, reflecting my ability to cope easily with different cultural milieux but also with different cultural approaches on film sets.