At 19 Ivan Zacharias entered FAMU, highly reputed Prague film academy. His ambition was to become director of photography and to make documentary films.

In the five years he spent at FAMU, communism collapsed and the country split in two. Prague became a popular location for shooting commercials, music videos and feature films, and multinational advertising networks followed soon. Local film production companies were also established, among them the Stillking which hired Zacharias for his first commercial work.
As a student he won the Golden Drum at Portorož in 1994 for his commercial for the National Gallery in Prague. Soon he was considered as the most interesting and innovative director from Central and Eastern Europe.
His reputation in the advertising industry has only been growing. He was invited to make a short film for JC Decaux, together with such eminent filmmakers as Francis Ford Coppola, Spike Lee, and Wong Kar Wai. He directed VW Beetle relaunch commercial and the immensely successful Born Free for Land Rover Freelander (winner of EPICA and a Gold Lion at Cannes). Then there was the Stella Artois commercial, an epic set in plague stricken France, and 2 films for Levi’s with Gael Garcia Bernal, one of the hottest Hollywood stars of our time. Practically every commercial he directs is being praised.
Five years ago he directed Mulit, a parody on Bollywood music comedies. It was produced in co-operation with Absolut vodka, shot in authentic locations in India, and celebrated at many film festivals around the world.

Recently he has been working for Honda, Smirnoff Red (Matrioshka), Nike (Pretty), Stella Artois (Pilot), and Adidas (Impossible Team, World Cup 2006).
In 2003 he was on the top of the most awarded directors list by the Shots Magazine, and the Gunn Report 2006 included him among the global top 10 directors. At this moment, Ivan Zacharias is carefully selecting a screenplay for his first full-length feature film.