After the Warsaw Pact invasion he left Czechoslovakia and lived in West Berlin, where he taught at film school. Later he moved to the United States. There he taught film at Hunter College, New York and UCSB, Santa Barbara. He became an American citizen in 1986. He continued to write screenplays, but none of them were produced. During this time he wrote two plays – "The Jewish War" (1986) and "Berenice" (1990). In 1991 he made his last film "Martha and I". He wrote a book of memoirs, "Bílý Mercedes", in 1995.