Jiří Brdečka (24 December 1917 – 2 June 1982) was a Czech writer, artist, and film director.[1]
Jiří Brdečka | |
|---|---|
| Born | 24 December 1917 |
| Died | 2 June 1982 (aged 64) |
| Nationality | Czech |
| Occupation(s) | Journalist, screenwriter, novelist, satirist, cartoonist, designer, animator, director |
| Children | Tereza Brdečková |
Life
Brdečka was born in Hranice (then in Austria-Hungary)[1] to a literary family, as his father, Otakar Brdečka (1881 – 1930), was a writer under the pseudonym Alfa.[2] Brdečka studied philosophy and aesthetics at Charles University in Prague until the German occupation of Czechoslovakia forced the closing of the school in 1939.[1][2] He then became an administrative clerk at the Prague Municipal Museum and found occasional work as a newspaper journalist and cartoonist.[2]
He worked as a press agent for the studio Lucernafilm from summer 1941 to the end of 1942.[2] In 1943 Brdečka took a job as an animator, and by 1949 he was working as a film director and screenwriter at Barrandov Studios.[1] He began directing animated films on his own in 1958.[2] In addition to his film work he also worked as a journalist, a film critic and a novelist. Brdečka's work is marked by its droll intellectual humor, often featuring an extensive use of hyperbole, satire, and literary illusions.[2]
He had one daughter, the writer and film critic Tereza Brdečková (born 1952).[2]
Selected filmography
Director
- Wedding in the Coral Sea (1944)
- Springman and the SS (1946)
Screenwriter
- Springman and the SS (1946)
- The Emperor's Nightingale (1948)
- The Emperor and the Golem (1951)
- Old Czech Legends (1951)
- Lost Children (1956)
- The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (1958)
- A Midsummer Night's Dream (1959)
- The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1961)
- The Cassandra Cat (1963)
- Lemonade Joe (1964)
- Dinner for Adele (1977)
- The Prince and the Evening Star (1979)
- The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians (1981)