Helena Třeštíková is a Czech director and screenwriter born in Prague in 1949. She studied documentary filmmaking at the Prague Film Academy. She has been working as a filmmaker since the mid-1970s and has made over fifty documentary films focusing on human relationships and social issues. Over the years, she has specialized in documenting the lives of individuals over the long term. She spent many years working for Czech television, which financed her hit series Marriage Stories (1987), seven-year portraits of young married couples. During these years in television, Třeštíková developed an interest in female characters, creating several portraits of women with tragic lives. Her latest trilogy (Marcela, René, Katka), made in the late 2000s, brought her international recognition. Recently, Helena Trestikova's work has been the subject of retrospectives at major festivals and the Centre Pompidou. Since 2002, in parallel with her work as a filmmaker, Helena Třeštíková has been teaching filmmaking at FAMU. In 2007, she also briefly served as Minister of Culture in the Czech Republic.