Ota Filip was born in Slezská Ostrava, in Czechoslovakia, the present-day Czech Republic.

After the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact Armed Forces in 1968, he was sentenced for his dissident activities, and incarcerated from 1969–70.

[2] They arrived in Munich, West Germany, on 10 July 1974, where Ota Filip and his wife lived until 1994, when they moved to Grafenaschau (in the Bavarian Alps).

From 1975 Ota Filip was a member of the Bavarian Academy of Arts and Sciences, Munich, Germany.

[5] Ota Filip died on 2 March 2018 in the hospital of Garmisch-Partenkirchen of complications of pneumonia, with his daughter Hana by his side.