One of the great Czech filmmakers, Jan Svankmajer was born in 1934 in Prague where he still lives. He trained at the Institute of Applied Arts from 1950 to 1954 and then at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts (Department of Puppetry). He soon became involved in the Theatre of Masks and the famous Black Theatre, before entering the Laterna Magika Puppet Theatre where he first encountered film. In 1970 he met his wife, the surrealist painter Eva Svankmajerova, and the late Vratislav Effenberger, the leading theoretician of the Czech Surrealist Group, which Svankmajer joined and of which he still remains a member.
Svankmajer made his first film in 1964 and for over thirty years has made some of the most memorable and unique animated films ever made, gaining a reputation as one of the world’s foremost animators, and influencing filmmakers from Tim Burton to The Brothers Quay. His brilliant use of claymation reached its apotheosis with the stunning 1982 film DIMENSIONS OF DIALOGUE. In 1987 Svankmajer completed his first fe •
The Surrealist Conspirator: An Interview With Jan Svankmajer
Animation of Heaven and Hell in 3-D Czech Surrealist Group
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Jan Švankmajer was born in 1934 in Prague, where he still lives.
He trained at the Institute of Applied Arts (1950-1954) and at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts, in the Department of Puppetry. He soon became involved in the Theatre of Masks, then in the famous Black Theatre, and finally in the Laterna Magika Puppet Theatre, where he first encountered film. In 1970, he met his wife, surrealist painter Eva Švankmajerova, and the late Vratislav Effenberger, leading theoretician of the Czech Surrealist Group, of which Švankmajer still remains a member. He made his first short film in 1964 and, for the past thirty years, he has made some of the most memorable and unique animated films ever made, gaining a reputation as one of the world’s foremost animators. In 1987, he completed his first feature film, Alice, a characteristically witty and subversive adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. With the ensuing feature films Faust (1994), Conspirators of Pleasure (1996), Little Otik (2000) and his newest film Surviving Life (2010), Švankmajer has moved further a