- Hermína Franková is a Czech writer. She graduated from Masarykova University's School of Pharmacy. Her books were first published in the 60s. In 1968, she wrote a short story for children called Witch on a Broomstick, which was her inspiration to write the theme to a fantasy film comedy entitled Girl on a Broomstick. In the 60s, she also wrote a wide range of books for adults, some of which were published abroad. In the 70s, she was prohibited from publishing for political reasons, and so she worked as a pharmacist. In that time, she published several books under other authors' names. In the 80s, she tried publishing once again under her own name. She returned to the theme of witches and wrote a screenplay for a mini-series of fantasy comedies entitled Fire Women. Starting in the 90s, she began writing again full-time. She co-wrote the screenplay for Cinelabyrinth for the exhibition in Osaka, Japan. Hermína Franková loves Southern Bohemia, which has inspired several of her books such as Lake Boy (published also in France) and Hooray! Let's Travel the World (2014). Hermína Franková loves dogs, children, traveling, swimming, novels by Daniel Pennac, good food, Campari and her family. Nowadays, she spends most of the time with her family. She has two daughters and three granddaughters.- IMDb Mini Biography By: herminafrankova.com
- [on genesis of The Girl on a Broomstick (1972)]: "Before I wrote the story idea for it, there were a lot of girls walking the streets with such fluffy, disheveled hairstyles. I thought they might make pretty witches. As time went on, I wondered how such a witch would have gotten into the world, what she would have done here, and so on. But there was another reason for my interest in witches and witchcraft. In those days, questionnaires were filled out everywhere, searching for the origins of each person. If the origin was bourgeois, it was unpleasant for the person concerned. Everywhere! At school, at the authorities, perhaps only at the hospital could one get in without any trouble. I had a lot of bourgeois friends, so one day I thought how nice it would be to have an origin that nobody would assume, and therefore couldn't be put into a questionnaire. A witch's origin. Anyway, after all the books and movies about the socialist brigades, I felt like writing something that had nothing to do with the regime of the time."
- [on her most complicated work]: "The most complex script I wrote was in 1991, when Milos Macourek and I were approached by the author of Kinoautomat (1967), Radúz Cincera. He wanted to make Cinelabyrinth (1990). It was about twelve separate cinema halls. In the first one it was announced what it was about, the viewer then moved on, and whichever room he entered, the plot had to continue in a comprehensible way. It was hard work. It premiered at the 1991 World's Fair in Osaka and then traveled the world."
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