Why do I make movies? I am looking for no man’s land, an island where no filmmaker has yet set their foot, a planet where no director has yet raised their flag, a world that exists only in fairy tales.

While Zdeněk Liška explored the potential of film music, Karel Zeman devoted his filmmaking career to the examination of the possibilites of cinematic images. He was an illusionist of the greatness of Georges Méliès, with whom he was often compared in the world press, a man who created new worlds with simple tricks or revived the old forgotten ones.

Karel Zeman was a successful product and advertising designer and only got to the film in his thirty-two when he, after a long consideration, accepted the offer of Elmar Klos from Zlín Studios. He fell in love with film animation during his studies and internships in France before the Second World War. This love was eventually stronger than the certainty of his job as a window dresser in Brno. His very first short film, The Christmas Dream, a puppet animation combined with live action co-directed with Bořivoj Zeman, won the Best Puppet Film Award at the 1946 Cannes International Film Festival. After a number of other successful animated shorts (e.g. the legendary anecdotal series with Mr Prokouk), he ventured fearlessly into the realm of feature-length fantasy movies. (The Deadly Invention and The Fabulous Baron Munchausen). His experimental films never cease to fascinate the audience. His pioneering collages combining the principles of animation and live-action film and stylistically referring to specific book illustrations have become a dream come true not only for Zeman himself but also for viewers of many generations. He managed to breathe life into the images of Zdeněk Burian, Édouard Riou, Léon Benett or Gustav Doré and populate them with living heroes! With each of his films, Zeman tirelessly searches for new visual and narrative potentials of cinematic illusion, and Zdeněk Liška, who was chosen to complete this year’s retrospective, successfully follows him in music and sound design in The Deadly Invention and The Fabulous Baron Munchausen. Until the dawn of normalisation when he resorts back to (sub)ordinary animation. 

This year’s Karel Zeman’s retrospective is organised with the Karel Zeman Museum.