Jan Mojto is a film producer and international distributor of TV- and theatre rights and operates several classical music channels in Europe.

Early Career

Born in Slovakia

Slovakia

The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...

, Mojto left for the West in the 1970s and started his career at the Kirch Group

Kirch Group

KirchGruppe was a German media group founded by Leo Kirch. The group collapsed in 2002 largely due to the debts associated with the purchase of sports rights for its television channels and the launch of pay-TV services....

, where he was responsible for the program sector for 14 years until 2001. He was member of the supervisory boards of Mediaset

Mediaset

Mediaset S.p.A., known as Gruppo Mediaset in Italian, is an Italian-based media company which is the largest commercial broadcaster in the country...

/Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, Telepiù/Italy, Gestevisión Telecinco

Telecinco

Telecinco is a Spanish commercial television channel operated by Mediaset España. Launched in 1990 as Tele 5, it was the fifth of the national terrestrial television channels. In 1997, Tele 5 was rebranded as Telecinco, dropping the flower logo seen in other Mediaset channel...

/Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG

ProSiebenSat.1 Media

ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG is a European media conglomerate, operating commercial television, premium pay channels, radio stations and related print businesses. It was formed on October 2, 2000 by merger of German TV broadcasters ProSieben Media AG and Sat.1 SatellitenFernsehen GmbH...

 and KirchPayTV (both Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

) and from 1994–2002 president of the ACT – Association of Commercial Television in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

. Before his years at the Kirch Group, Jan Mojto worked as a journalist, specializing in film, theater and literature. Mojto, who speaks eight languages, studied literature and history in Bratislava

Bratislava

Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...

 and Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

, and obtained an MBA at the Institut Européen d'Administration des Affaires)

INSEAD

INSEAD is an international graduate business school and research institution. It has campuses in Europe , Asia , and the Middle East , as well as a research center in Israel...

 in Fontainebleau

Fontainebleau

Fontainebleau is a commune in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located south-southeast of the centre of Paris. Fontainebleau is a sub-prefecture of the Seine-et-Marne department, and it is the seat of the arrondissement of Fontainebleau...

. He was honoured with the Médaille Charlemagne pour des Médias Européens (2003), the Bavarian Order of Merit

Bavarian Order of Merit

The Bavarian Order of Merit is the order of merit of the Free State of Bavaria. It is awarded by the Minister-President of Bavaria as a "recognition of outstanding contributions to the Free State of Bavaria and the Bavarian people"....

 (2007) and as producer the Bavarian TV Award

Bayerischer Fernsehpreis

Bayerischer Fernsehpreis is an award presented by the government of Bavaria, Germany since 1989.- 2010 :* Nina Gummich, Nachwuchsförderpreis * Klaus Doldinger, Bavarian Prime Minister's Prize- 2009 :...

 (for “Napoleon” 2003) and the Austrian Film Award Romy

Romy (TV award)

The Romy TV award in honor of the actress Romy Schneider was created in 1990 by the Austrian newspaper Kurier – or rather their movie reviewer Rudolf John, who also designed the 30.5 cm gilded trophy. It recalls a scene from the movie The Swimmingpool with Alain Delon, when Romy Schneider...

 (“The Crown Prince” 2006).

As a producer and co-producer at KirchMedia Jan Mojto was responsible for hundreds of hours of programs, and worked with actors such as Ben Kingsley

Ben Kingsley

Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE is a British actor. He has won an Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film Gandhi in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...

, Richard Harris

Richard Harris

Richard St John Harris was an Irish actor, singer-songwriter, theatrical producer, film director and writer....

, Gary Oldman

Gary Oldman

Gary Leonard Oldman is an English actor, voice actor, filmmaker and musician.A member of the 1980s Brit Pack, Oldman came to prominence via starring roles in British films Meantime , Sid and Nancy and Prick Up Your Ears , with his performance in the latter bringing him his first BAFTA Award...

, John Malkovich

John Malkovich

John Gavin Malkovich is an American actor, producer, director and fashion designer with his label Technobohemian. Over the last 25 years of his career, Malkovich has appeared in more than 70 motion pictures. For his roles in Places in the Heart and In the Line of Fire, he received Academy Award...

 and Gérard Depardieu

Gérard Depardieu

Gérard Xavier Marcel Depardieu is a French actor and filmmaker. He is a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur, Chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite and has twice won the César Award for Best Actor...

, as well as with directors such as Ermanno Olmi

Ermanno Olmi

Ermanno Olmi is a renowned Italian film director.-Biography:Olmi was born in Bergamo, Lombardy. He is married to Loredana Detto, who played Antonietta Masetti in Il Posto....

, Roger Young

Roger Young (director)

Roger E. Young is an American TV and film director. He won an Emmy Award in 1980 in Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series for Lou Grant . He was born in Champaign, Illinois. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism from the University of Illinois...

, Robert Dornhelm

Robert Dornhelm

Robert Dornhelm is an Austrian film and television director of Romanian ancestry. He has worked on numerous television programmes and has also released such movies as Echo Park, The Venice Project, Der Unfisch, and A Further Gesture...

 and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Florian Maria Georg Christian, Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck is a German film director, best known for writing and directing the 2007 Oscar-winning film The Lives of Others and the 2010 film The Tourist.-Personal life and family:...

. He focused on the filming of elaborate event programs based on historical themes and great literary works for the international market. One of his most important projects was the 21-part series based on the stories from the Bible, which achieved multiple Emmy

Emmy Award

An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

-nominations and other awards. The miniseries "Jesus

Jesus (1999 film)

Jesus is a Biblical telefilm that retells the story of Jesus. It was shot in Morocco and Malta. It stars Jeremy Sisto as Jesus, Jacqueline Bisset as Mary of Nazareth, Debra Messing as Mary Magdalene and Gary Oldman as Pontius Pilate.-Overview:...

" with Jacqueline Bisset

Jacqueline Bisset

Jacqueline Bisset is an English actress. She has been nominated for four Golden Globe Awards and an Emmy Award. She is known for her roles in the films Bullitt , Airport , The Deep , Class , and the TV series Nip/Tuck in 2006...

 and Jeremy Sisto

Jeremy Sisto

Jeremy Merton Sisto is an American actor. Sisto has had recurring roles as Billy Chenowith on the HBO series Six Feet Under and Detective Cyrus Lupo on Law & Order on television and also starred in the films Jesus, Clueless and Thirteen.-Early life:Sisto was born in Grass Valley, California, the...

 was watched by more than 24 million viewers on CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

. With "Abraham", TNT reached the second highest ratings of a miniseries ever.

EOS group

His group of companies, which was set up with the founding of the television production company EOS (“Events on Screen”) in 2002, comprises in addition Beta Film, Beta Cinema, Kineos, Unitel and Classica. EOS develops and finances event productions with international stars for the world market. The distribution firm Beta Film with its 15.000 hours of program is one of the largest international licensors of film rights outside the U.S., the portfolio of Beta Cinema contains several Oscar-awarded movies. Kineos distributes the German-language free-TV rights to about 12,000 titles, among these are over 5,000 U.S. productions. The classical music label Unitel is the most important producer of audiovisual music recordings worldwide with a vast library of programs of ca. 1000 titles, the TV channel Classica can be received via several European PayTV platforms.

Productions

Mojto worked for years together with Robert Halmy Sr, with whom he shot the Emmy-award-winning miniseries “The Odyssey

The Odyssey (TV miniseries)

The Odyssey is a 1997 Emmy award-winning and Golden Globe-nominated American television miniseries. Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky, the miniseries aired in two-parts beginning on May 18, 1997 on NBC. The series later won the award for "Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries or a Special"...

” starring Isabella Rossellini

Isabella Rossellini

Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini is an Italian actress, filmmaker, author, philanthropist, and model. Rossellini is noted for her 14-year tenure as a Lancôme model, and for her roles in films such as Blue Velvet and Death Becomes Her.-Background and early life:Rossellini is a...

, Geraldine Chaplin

Geraldine Chaplin

Geraldine Leigh Chaplin is an English-American actress and the daughter of Charlie Chaplin.Chaplin first came to prominence for her Golden Globe-nominated role of Tonya in David Lean's Doctor Zhivago . She received her second Golden Globe nomination for Robert Altman's Nashville...

 and Christopher Lee

Christopher Lee

Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...

. Together with Gérard Depardieu, Mojto produced, among other projects, “Les Misérables” (Family Channel), “The Count of Monte Cristo

The Count of Monte Cristo (1998 miniseries)

The Count of Monte Cristo is a French miniseries based on the 1844 novel The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas père.-Plot:...

” and the 4-part mini-series “Napoleon”, which was honoured with an Emmy as well as several important German and French Awards.

With EOS Mojto co-produced the acclaimed feature film "Downfall

Downfall (film)

Downfall is a 2004 German/Italian/Austrian epic war film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, depicting the final ten days of Adolf Hitler's life in his Berlin bunker and Nazi Germany in 1945....

" directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel

Oliver Hirschbiegel

Oliver Hirschbiegel is a German film director. His works include Das Experiment and the Oscar nominated Der Untergang.- Career :...

 and starring Bruno Ganz

Bruno Ganz

Bruno Ganz is a Swiss actor, known for his roles as Damiel in Wings of Desire and Adolf Hitler in Downfall.- Early life :Bruno Ganz was born in Zürich to a Swiss mechanic father and a northern Italian mother. He had decided to pursue an acting career by the time he entered university...

 about the last days of Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

. “Downfall” made the shortlist for the best foreign-language film 2005. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s “The Lives of Others

The Lives of Others

The Lives of Others is a 2006 German drama film, marking the feature film debut of filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. The film involves the monitoring of the cultural scene of East Berlin by agents of the Stasi, the GDR's secret police...

”, one of the highlights in the Beta Cinema portfolio, won the Academy Award (Best Foreign Language

Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...

) 2007. Among others, EOS co-produced the high ranking HBO-Series "Rome", “Dresden – The Inferno”, the most successful German mini-series ever which has been sold to 95 countries, “Side Effects” about the thalidomide scandal of the 1950s and 60s and Robert Dornhelm’s adaptation of Tolstoi’s “War and Peace

War and Peace

War and Peace is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in 1869. The work is epic in scale and is regarded as one of the most important works of world literature...

”. With Unitel Mojto produced “Mozart22”, the audiovisuell recording of all Mozart operas at the Salzburg Festival

Salzburg Festival

The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...

 2006, the opera movie “La Bohème” with Anna Netrebko

Anna Netrebko

Anna Yuryevna Netrebko is an Russian operatic soprano. She now holds dual Russian and Austrian citizenship and currently resides in Vienna. She has been nicknamed "La Bellissima" by fans.-Biography:...

 und Rolando Villazón

Rolando Villazón

Emilio Rolando Villazón Mauleón is a Mexican tenor. He settled in France and in 2007 became a French citizen.-Early life and education:...

, directed by Robert Dornhelm

Robert Dornhelm

Robert Dornhelm is an Austrian film and television director of Romanian ancestry. He has worked on numerous television programmes and has also released such movies as Echo Park, The Venice Project, Der Unfisch, and A Further Gesture...

 and “Beethoven9” with the Vienna Philharmonics and Christian Thielemann

Christian Thielemann

-Career:Thielemann studied viola and piano at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin and took private lessons in composition and conducting before becoming répétiteur aged 19 at the Deutsche Oper Berlin with Heinrich Hollreiser and working as Herbert von Karajan's assistant...

.

External links

• http://www.eos-entertainment.com EOS
• http://www.betafilm.com Beta Film
• http://www.betacinema.com Beta Cinema
• http://www.kineos.com Kineos
• http://www.betafilm.com/en/unitel.html Unitel
• http://www.classica.de Classica