Petr Jarchovsky (b. 1966) and Jan Hrebejk (b. 1967) were at high school together in Prague, and from 1987 to 1991 studied screenwriting and script editing at Prague's Film Academy (FAMU).

While at school Jan Hrebejk directed and produced two films: EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX BUT WERE AFRAID TO EXPERIENCE (1988) and 1948 AD (1989). He then made his short film debut with the television produced YOU DO NOTHING BECAUSE YOU'VE GOT NO GOOD REASON (1991)-all three were from scripts written by schoolmate Petr Zelenka. At the time, the films gained both viewer and critical attention and numerous awards at student festivals.

Petr Jarchovsky's screenwriting debut came as one part of the cycle VERY BELIEVABLE STORIES shot by another outstanding fellow student, director Igor Chaun. He also wrote, with Jan Hrebejk, another script which became the generation-gap comedy set in a socialist youth camp, LET'S SING ALL AROUND (1990); the film was (producer) Ondrej Trojan's directing debut, and cameraman Asen Sopov's first try. It featured the young talents of Anna Geislerova and Jan Semotan (Big Beat), both of whom later went on to become part of a successful new generation of actors.

In 1992, Jan Hrebejk shot an interesting staging of his graduating thesis, an adaptation of Egon Hostovsky's Charity Benefit for Czech Television starring Jiri Kodet, Ivana Chylkova, and Bohumil Klepl.

The musical BIG BEAT, a retro-comedy set at the end of the fifties when rock and roll hit Czechoslovakia, debuted in 1993. Petr Jarchovsky wrote the script based on a story by Petr Sabach, original music and lyrics came from singer-songwriter Ivan Hlas, debut feature-film direction was provided by Jan Hrebejk, and renowned veteran cameraman Jan Malir was behind the lens. The film had strong box office success and won many prestigious awards including Czech Lions for Best Director, Best Actor (Josef Abrham), Best Original Score, and Best Film of 1993. Then in 1996, director Hrebejk and Jan Malir shot the children's television series WHERE STARS FALL, sold to many countries around Europe.

Another success for the creative duo of Jarchovsky and Hrebejk was the nontraditional triptych of stories for the television series BACHELORS which won the 1997 Film and Television Association's and the Literary Fund's prestigious awards for their contribution to dramatic television programming.

The filmmakers who came together to make BIG BEAT formed such a great creative-realization team that none hesitated to work on COSY DENS and then on DIVIDED WE FALL.

And DIVIDED WE FALL is so far the latest collaborative effort from the creative workshop of Petr Jarchovsky and Jan Hrebejk. The script received a significant grant from the Czech State Fund for the Support and Development of Czech Cinematography.

Director Jan Hrebejk has also worked on many smaller projects: music videos (for the Czech groups Zluty Pes, Ivan Hlas, and Hudba Praha), commercials, and documentary films (incl. bios of Dominik Hasek and Vladimir Misik for Febio).

In 1997, he had his theater directorial debut at the Pod Palmovkou Theater with a production of Christopher Hampton's Dangerous Relationships starring Vilma Cibulkova, Ales Prochazka, and Zita Kabatova.

In March, Hrebejk had another premiere at the Pod Palmovkou Theater-a stage adaptation of Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway, and this year he delighted audiences with an adaptation of Amadeus at the same theater.

Petr Jarchovsky is now teaching at the faculty of screenwriting and script editing at Prague's Film Academy (FAMU). He also works as a script editor at Czech Television for which he is currently writing an adaptation of the Josef Skvorecky novel THE COWARDS. In 1998, Paseka Publishers brought out his novel Divided We Fall, illustrated by Pavel Reisenauer, upon which the film of the same name was based.

At present, he and director-producer Ondrej Trojan are working on a new feature film entitled Zelary.