Jan Nemec, whose surreal, parable-like films made him one of the leading lights of the Czech new wave in the 1960s, died on March 18 in Prague. He was 79.

His wife, Iva Ruszelakova, confirmed his death, the newspaper Dnes (Today) reported. She did not give the cause.

In the years leading up to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Mr. Nemec established himself as one of the most formally inventive filmmakers in a group that also included Milos Forman, Ivan Passer and Jiri Menzel.

In films like “Diamonds of the Night” (1964) and “A Report on the Party and the Guests” (1966), which brought him to the attention of American audiences when it was shown at the New York Film Festival in 1968, he explored the primal urge for freedom and the ways in which human beings, under duress, cope with life’s obstacles.