Education
Academy of Performing Arts.
Academy of Performing Arts.
After graduation in the 1950s Kotva became a teacher. As a practising Christian, Kotva was regarded as politically suspect and potentially disloyal by the Czechoslovak communist administration. He was permitted to teach only in remote rural regions.
He also made guest appearances at the National (Prague).
1973: Wolz - Leben und Verklärung eines deutschen Anarchisten (DEFA - Regie: Günter Reisch) Kotva made dozens of appearances in Czechoslovak movies and television His film debut in 1966 came with a role as a railway supervisor in Jiří Menzel"s Oscar-winning Closely Watched Trains.
He appeared too in the 1966 Czechoslovak New Wave film Hotel pro cizince, by Antonín Máša, playing a vagabond, and in 1968"s The Cremator by Juraj Herz. Kotva"s sole leading role came in Svatej z Krejcárku (1969), in which he played a shoemaker named Lájošek.
The majority of his roles, and those for which he is best known in Czechoslovakian cinema, featured Kotva as a supporting actor, often playing shy, introverted and odd personalities.
In 1965 he moved to Prague, becoming a founding member of the Činoherní klub theater there.