Jiří Brdečka (24 December 1917 – 2 June 1982) was a Czech writer, artist, and film director. ^[1]

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 [ cs] 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 [ cs] (born 1952). ^[2]

Brdečka died in 1982 in Prague. ^[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)

References

External links

• Jiří Brdečka at IMDb
• Essay on Jiří Brdečka by Gene Deitch

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