The first animated film made in Czechoslovakia, now the Czech Republic, was Karel
Dodal’s puppet film The Lantern’s Secretin 1935. The country had a long history of puppet
theater that continued over into animation. The heart of the Czech industry was always
Prague. Atelier Filmovych Triku (AFIT) was founded in 1935, and the studio made films
until shortly before World War II ended.
After the war puppet animation reemerged in Czechoslovakia. Jirí Trnka became inter-
nationally recognized as the poet of puppet animation, making Staré povesti ceské,The
Hand, and many other films. In the 1940s Jirí Brdecka (a writer, not an artist), Zdenek Miler,
and Eduard Hofman made traditional animated films. Hermína Tyrlová produced creative
films with yarn, paper, wood, and other objects. Karel Zeman made films with puppets,
traditional animation, and live actors, often mixing these elements. In the 1950s the Czech
animation industry grew with younger puppet animators following Trnka. The American ani-
mator Gene Deitch came to Prague in 1959 to see about some subcontracting and remained
to animate there. He gradually changed the traditional cel animation production model at
Bratri v Triku to conform more closely to the U.S. model. The animators in Prague had basi-
cally taught themselves animation after World War II by running old Disney features frame
by frame. In the 1980s, with fresh inspiration, a new era of Czech animation began. There
were five animation centers including the Bratri v Triku and the Jirí Trnka studios in Prague.
Unfortunately, in the postcommunist years between 1990 and 1996 animation in the Czech
Republic declined again. In 2000 Zdenka Deitch (Gene Deitch’s wife) took over as head of
Bratri v Triku, continuing their tradition. Other important Czech animators include Bretislav
Pojar, who was the actual animator for Trnka’s films, Jan Svankmajer, and Jiri Barta.ˇ
In Hungary István Kató made his first cutout film in 1914, and he made hundreds of
animated films before he retired in 1957. Before World War II, George Pal, John Halas, and
other Hungarian animators left Hungary to work elsewhere. After the war Gyula Macskassy
and György Varnai made films with adult themes, rejecting the folktales favored by other
Eastern European countries. Tibor Csermak made The Ball with White Dotsin 1961.
Hungarian animation saw many changes during the later half of the twentieth century. In
the 1960s the state-run Pannonia began producing adult cinema as well as children’s fare,
making product for TV and the theater. In 1968 economic reforms in Hungary ended the
strict planning that had been required under communism. In the 1970s there was a new
foray into animated features with the first one,Janos the Knight, completed by Marcell
Jankovics. In 1981 Ferenc Rofusz won an Oscar for The Fly. Other important animators
included Sandor Reisenbüchler, György Kovasznai, and Csaba Varga. Important Hungarian
studios have included Germany’s Loonland Animation and Varga Ltd. in Budapest.
Soviet-trained Serij Tagatz was the first Yugoslavian animator, but animation in
Yugoslavia (now Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia, and Herzegovina) was mostly limited to
advertising until after World War II. With government financing Fadil Hadzic founded Duga
Film, producing animation during the early 1950s. About 1955 animators from the former
Duga Film and a team from Nikola Kostelac discovered the limited animation techniques
of UPA. They learned by watching animated segments produced by John Hubley for the
American live-action film The Four Poster, which Zagreb Film distributed. Early animators
of this Zagreb School were Dusan Vukotic, Vatroslav Mimica, and Vlado Kristl. They used
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1963
Astro Boy, Japan’s first animated television series, appears
and slowly ignites the anime craze of the 1990s and beyond.