As much as we enjoyed it, no one knew what was coming or how it would turn out
Stáhnout obrázek
Martin Janíček was born in Prague on 25 March 1961 into painter Přemysl Janíček‘s family. His artistic talent enjoyed support from early childhood and his father helped him find his own direction. Since his parents refused to submit to the communist regime, Martin‘s path to study was complicated. First he took an apprenticeship, then he completed his high school diploma, and the way to his dream Academy of Fine Arts (AVU) opened up for him only in 1990 when he could start focusing fully on art. In the 1980s he worked as a cleaner in a museum, as did many of his friends at the time. A key moment in his life was the purchase of a secluded house in Kosoř his parents had originally bought for his grandmother in 1975. She never moved in, and Martin Janíček with wife Jaroslava and their friends turned it into a place where a wide alternative culture scene, underground bands, dissidents and artists would meet. During the 1980s, a number of free events took place there, quite incomprehensibly escaping the attention of others and the StB. Nobody knew that at the time, and everyone involved risked severe sanctions. The Janíčeks were awarded the Third Resistance Award by the Ministry of Defence in 2022 for dissemination of independent culture. They were still living in the house in Kosoř at the time of the filming in 2025.
