Brilliant and ground-breaking puppetmaker, surrealist, animator and film-maker born in 1934 in Prague. Studied puppetry at the Prague School of Performing Arts and later, in 1960, founded the Theatre of Masks in Prague, an experimental company dealing with mask work, where he became interested in film-making.
He uses a variety of media, and is probably most famous for his claymation work. His films are both grotesque and beautiful, sometimes macabre. Alice, his reworking of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, is probably his best known film. Conspirators of Pleasure, a mainly live action-based full length movie, was on general release in the UK in 1996 and tells the weird, linked tales of the residents of an apartment block in Prague: it managed to be hugely entertaining for 85 mins with hardly any dialogue. Well worth catching.
Filmography:
1964 Posledni trik pana Schwarcewalldea a pana Edgara
-The Last Trick
1965 J.S.Bach - fantasia g-moll - J.S.Bach - Fantasy in
G Minor
Spiel mit Steinen -A Game with Stones
1966 Rakvickarna - Punch and Judy
Et Cetera
1967 Historia Naturae
1968 Zahrada -The Garden
Byt - The Flat
1969 Picknick mit Weismann - Picnic with Weismann
Tichy tyden v dome - A Quiet Week in the House
1970 Kostnice - The Ossuary
Don Sajn - Don Juan
1971 Zvahlav aneb Saticky Slameneho Huberta -
Jabberwocky
1972 Leonarduv denik - Leonardo's Diary
1979 Otrantsky zamek - The Castle of Otranto
1980 Zanik domu Usheru - The Fall of the House of Usher
1982 Moznosti dialogu - Dimensions of Dialogue
Do pivnice - Down to the Cellar
1983 Kyvadlo, jama a nadeje - The Pendulum, the Pit and
Hope
1987 Neco z Alenky - Alice
1988 Muzne hry - Virile Games
Jiny druh lasky - Another Kind of Love
Zamilovane maso - Meat Love
1989 Tma, svetlo, tma - Darkness-Light-Darkness
Flora
1990 Konec stalinismu v Cechach - The Death of Stalinism
in Bohemia
1992 Jidlo - Food
1994 Lekce Faust - Faust
1996 Spiklenci slasti - Conspirators of Pleasure
1999 Otesanek