A graduate of Prague's School of Arts and Crafts, in 1936 he created a puppet theater, which was disbanded after the outbreak of WWII. During the war he designed stage sets and illustrated children's books. In 1945 he set up an animation unit with several collaborators at the Prague film studio; they called the unit "Trick Brothers." Trnka specialized in puppet animation, a traditional Czech art form, of which he became the undisputed master. He also created animated cartoons, but it was his puppet animation that made him an internationally recognized artist and the winner of film festival awards at Venice and elsewhere. He wrote the scripts for most of his own films.
The Czech stop-motion puppet animation master Jiri Trnka directed some of the most acclaimed animated films ever made. In 1966, four years before his death, Newsday lauded him as "second to Chaplin as a film artist because his work inaugurated a new stage ...
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This melancholy piece about the metamorphoses of love and the eternal dissatisfaction of human beings with what they have was inspired by the lyrics of the French song "Plaisir d'amour. ...
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A happy little potter is approached by a huge hand which wants him to sculpt its statue. The potter refuses, wanting nothing more than to be left alone with his only friend, a potted plant. As the hand's request gives way to bribery, demands, and threats, ...
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Taken from Boccaccio's Decameron, this lovely puppet film tells the bawdy story of the beautiful young Venetian lady who confesses her sinful passion for the Archangel Gabriel to a lustful monk, who promptly impersonates him in her bedroom with predictable ...
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A satire of the Great American Way, with Lemonade Joe a "clean living" gunfighter who drinks only Kola-Loca Lemonade and convinces everyone else in town (with his gun skills) that all "real men" drink ONLY lemonade! ...
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Trnka's sci-fi vision of the future in which machines and robots try to substitute themselves into the most beautiful human relationships. A cybernetic robot is supposed to substitute for the loving grandmother of a little girl. The wise grandmother, howev ...
Watch NowThe passion for high speed can nowadays almost be seen in the new-born. The film shows that such passion, if not controlled, is self-destructing and even suicidal. At least this is the way Trnka presents it in this satiric story. —kratkyfilm. ...
Watch NowAn old woodblock train meets its shiny new electric replacement one Christmas Eve in this glowingly nostalgic stop-motion toy story, directed by Bretislav Pojar and featuring gorgeous design by Trnka. ...
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The first puppet film shot in CinemaScope. It is based on the famous poetic comedy by William Shakespeare. Three worlds meet in this story: the noble world of three Athens couples, a common popular world of tradesmen amateur theatre and a fairy-tale happin ...
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The cartoon film sets out to justify the existence of UNESCO as an instrument for world peace. ...
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Anti-war animation about man's passions for self-destruction by experimenting with dangerous chemicals. ...
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After the battle of Sudoměř the Hussite teaching spreads through the whole country and people start leaving their homes to help build the fortification of Tábor. Prague citizens request help against the army of Zikmund. The Hussite army with Jan Žižka ...
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"Román s basou" is another short by master a stop-motion puppet-animator Jiri Trnka. The story is based on Anton Chekhovs story "Roman s Kontrabasom". Princess Bibulova decides to go fishing along the river while not far away a bass player leaves his two ...
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Adapting Jaroslav Hasek's raucous satirical novel, and also bringing Josef Lada's equally famous illustrations to garrulous puppet life, posed Trnka one of his biggest creative challenges. Trnka himself felt that the final episode was the most artistically ...
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The second part of the revolutionary Hussite trilogy takes place in the years 1419-1420. ...
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Hurvinek cannot go to a circus because he injured himself when sliding down the stair rail. He daydreams that he is an acrobat riding a scooter and an animal-trainer taming beasts. ...
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The first part of the "Hussite Revolutionary Trilogy", completed with Jan Žižka (1955) and Proti všem (Against All Odds, 1957). The film captures the period from May 1412 to the summer of 1415, a turbulent time in the Czech Kingdom, during which there w ...
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Two mischievous frost spirits make things chilly for a pair of travelers in this wintry comic folktale. ...
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A selfish self-centered widowed ruler, barely tolerated by his subjects and called appropriately enough, 'King Myself, First' asks his three daughters to name the measure of their love for him. When one of them says, "more than salt", he banishes her from ...
Watch NowFolk art–like hand-drawn stills illustrate this sweetly simple pastoral fable, in which a peasant comes into possession of a small fortune—but realizes there are treasures greater than gold. ...
Watch NowHow do you wake up a sleeping puppet? Made by Trnka in collaboration with actor and puppeteer Josef Pehr, this winsome mix of live action and puppet play is enchanting entertainment for the youngest of viewers. ...
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Adapted from the scathingly funny, hugely influential anti-war classic by anarchist writer Jaroslav Hašek, this three-part satirical farce charts the exploits of the eponymous World War I infantryman, whose antic misadventures continually frustrate his co ...
Watch NowA careful motorcyclist stops by a cozy pub on his way home to his sweetheart. ...
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A monumental piece of art bringing the heroes of the ancient Czech myths back to life. The picture consists of seven parts: Cech the Forefather, Bivoj, Libuse, Premysl, Girls War, Horymir, Lucka War. ...
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The Emperor's mismanagement of his country is provoking some in his court to plot to overthrow him. He feels successful, at least, when he discovers the legendary Golem, which he believes can protect him and even cure his imaginary illnesses but, when he ...
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Bayaya, a young peasant, protected by the spirit of his dead mother, arrives at the castle of the King, where he entertains his three daughters. He soon realizes that the three princesses are nagged by evil spirits. The little peasant manages to rid them o ...
Watch NowA poor fisherman catches the golden fish that promises him to fulfil three wishes if he sets her free again. He does so and the fish fulfils two of his three wishes. However, she refuses to fulfil the third one, the last one in which the fisherman's wife w ...
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Trnka brings to life a surrealist circus of tightrope-walking fish, musical monkeys, balancing bears, and high-flying acrobatics in this whimsical feat of cutout animation made in collaboration with leading Czech painters of the era. ...
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Adaptation of a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, about an emperor who prefers the tinkling of a bejeweled mechanical bird to the song of a real nightingale. When the Emperor is near death, the nightingale's song restores his health. ...
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A barrel organ grinder meets the devil on a mysterious moonlit night in this haunted-house fable, which showcases Trnka's atmospheric use of sound to conjure a macabre mood. ...
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An animated singing western short in which a cowboy takes on the villain to save his beloved. ...
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The first full-length puppet film made by Jiri Trnka. Like the painter Ales who illustrated the national songs, Trnka depicts the traditional customs and tales of the Czech village in six separate sequences: Shrovetide, Spring, Legend About St. Prokop, The ...
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Five crime stories connected by the narration of police superintendent Bartosek. ...
Watch NowThe second cartoon by Jiri Trnka that was a sensation at the festival in Cannes in 1946 when it defeated the world animation elite of the time. It is a musical fairy-tale based on a famous folk story about animals that deterred thieves. ...
Watch NowTrnka reached new heights of modernist abstraction with this innovative, surrealist mini-masterwork, which critic Jean-Pierre Coursodon praised as the Citizen Kane of animation. ...
Watch NowA fable about a fox who wanted to drown a pitcher to get revenge on him. ...
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The first animated picture made by Jiří Trnka for adults. It is a comic story of a legendary chimney-cleaner who, with the help of a spring from an old lounge-chair, became the terror of the Prague-occupying SS troops in World War II. ...
Watch NowThe first Czech cartoon based on a fairy-tale about grandpa, grandma, their granddaughter, dog and cat who all wanted to pull a big beet out from the ground. The picture shows children that a big task can only be fulfilled by joint effort. ...
Watch NowThe Czech stop-motion puppet animation master Jiri Trnka directed some of the most acclaimed animated films ever made. In 1966, four years before his death, Newsday lauded him as "second to Chaplin as a film artist because his work inaugurated a new stage ...
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Short documentary on "the Walt Disney of Eastern Europe", Czech puppet animation director Jirí Trnka. ...
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