[1] Before entering the film industry, Jakubisko taught still photography at a secondary school for applied arts in Bratislava,[1] and worked for a television company in Košice.

He began winning international acclaim with his experimental short films before making his first feature Crucial Years (Slovak: Kristove roky) in 1967.

[1] Jakubisko's career was heavily impacted by political events in Czechoslovakia, with his work facing censorship in the period following the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion in response to the Prague Spring.

Jakubisko returned to feature film-making in 1979 with Build a House, Plant a Tree (Slovak: Postav dom, zasaď strom), which was nonetheless banned for its anti-regime messages, but not before it received a positive reception at a film festival in Amsterdam.

[1] The success in Amsterdam proved invigorating for Jakubisko's work,[1] leading to a fertile period, culminating in the 1983 epic The Millennial Bee (Slovak: Tisícročná včela).

[1] 2008 saw the release of Bathory, starring Anna Friel as Elizabeth Báthory, a 16th-17th century Hungarian countess, often claimed to be one of history's most prolific mass murderers.

In addition to being Jakubisko's first English-language film, Bathory was reported to be the most expensive motion picture production in the history of Czech or Slovak cinema,[citation needed] involving investment from numerous companies around Europe.

In 2007 it was reported that two former production staff members, Jan Milic and Karel Lupomesky, had stolen a copy of the film from studios in Prague and were threatening to release it on the Internet if they were not given £12,000.