On Monday, Filip Smoljak agreed with the theater to increase the author’s share of heirs for his father’s plays from 12 to 14 percent of the profits of each play from 2015 to 2017, except for Akt (written by Zdeněk Svěrák himself) and Class Book Loss Investigation (written by Smoljak himself). Smoljak’s share of inheritance thus increased from 1.5 to 1.75 percent. According to Zdeněk Svěrák, who testified in court on Monday, he and probably the remaining heirs will demand a share of the original 12 percent.
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According to Filip Smoljak, his father’s reward for staging the games was not fair. “We think that the Jára Cimrman Theater deserves an exceptional reward. This theater exists only thanks to those games, it does not play any other games, “said Smoljak after the meeting.
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Zdeněk Svěrák on the dispute with Filip Smoljak
“The essence of the dispute lies in the personality of the plaintiff, Mr. Filip Smoljak. Three of them are in a wonderful relationship with me, almost family, and only Filip Smoljak always has a different opinion, “said Svěrák after his statement. “Although he owns only one-eighth of the copyright, he wants to run the theater. He wants us to move to another agency, he wants more money, and most importantly, he wants more money. And he pretends Dad’s not here, so I’ll avenge him. I do not understand this revenge, because Lada did not want any revenge, “he continued.
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According to Svěrák, Filip Smoljak from ŽDJC wants to “squeeze” what he can. “The man is completely incomprehensible to me,” Svěrák concluded. He also testified in court that Ladislav Smoljak never wanted to increase share fees.
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Five thousand for recording a song
Another subject of the original lawsuit was the director’s rights, Smoljak withdrew this part of the lawsuit, as well as the reward of Filip Smoljak for the music for the play Messenger from Liptákov. It was a recording of Cornelius Gurlitt’s Little Romance, which Filip Smoljak played on the piano more than forty years ago and which recording is used in the mentioned play. Filip Smoljak will receive five thousand crowns from the theater for its use in the years 2015 to 2017.
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Filip Smoljak leads more similar disputes. One of them, with a theater in Prostějov, is now with the Supreme Court, where Smoljak’s lawyer filed an appeal when previous courts rejected the claim. In this case, it is about 20,000 crowns.
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Last August, the city court unjustifiably awarded Filip Smoljak less than 60,000 for publishing an edition of the complete work of Jára Cimrman, which Supraphon had published five years ago without his consent.
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Smoljak Jr. also resolved several disputes with smaller theaters in various ways in the Czech Republic, but most of them, according to his words, he agreed without a lawsuit, they were always in the thousands. However, a similar lawsuit, which is being resolved by the Prague Municipal Court (whether the directing is an author’s work), was dropped from the table by the Regional Court in Pilsen the table the year before last. According to him, the director is an executive artist, not an author.
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