LAUNCH OF GIANNALBERTO BENDAZZI‘S AND TEREZA BRDECKOVA’S BOOKS
On Sunday, May 29th at 8 P.M. Prague art cinema Ponrepo will host the launch of two important books from the sphere of ANIMATION.
The noted Italian historian Giannalberto Bendazzi is going to present his new three-tome book called Animation – A World History and Tereza Brdeckova is going to introduce the English version of her book entitled Jiri Brdecka: Life – Animation – Magic.
The launch is held under the auspices of the Italian Cultural Center in Prague (Instituto Italiano di Cultura Praga) and the introductory remarks will be delivered by its director Giovanni Sciola.
Professionals, witnesses and lovers of animation are surely not going to miss this unique opportunity to meet the renowned historian of animated film, Mr. Giannalberto Bendazzi and also the daughter of Jiri Brdecka, the novelist and the screenplay writer Tereza Brdeckova.
Giannalberto Bendazzi has visited the Czech Republic on various occasions not only in capacity of a president of AniFest festival (2009) and the honorary member of its Art Council (2011), but also as a friend of many animation artists who he visited in their studios. Bendazzi is best known for his book “Cartoons − 100 Years of Cinema Animation” which has been considered the bible of animation. Its enlarged three-tome, 1456 page version entitled Animation – A World History will now arrive in Prague! Bendazzi has always expressed his admiration for the Czech animation school and cherished his meetings with Jiri Trnka and Jiri Brdecka. Therefore he was extremely happy to have met the daughter of Jiri Brdecka and together with another of his Czech friends, professor Jiri Kubicek, to have become the co-writers of Tereza’s book on her father. Giannalberto Bendazzi says about animation: – “I do not love animation as a collector loves his stamps or a fan loves his football team. I deeply admire this art that has always been underestimated, or even neglected, and therefore it deserves a special praise.”
The other book from the field of animation which will be presented is the English version is a monograph entitled: Jiri Brdecka: Life – Animation – Magic (Limonadovy Joe, the publishing company of Jiri Dedecek and Tereza Brdeckova, 2015). It shows the life and work of a major filmmaker – animator and screenplay writer Jiri Brdecka.
It is an engrossing journey into the art, personalities, politics and fight for artistic freedom in Czechoslovakia 1948-81. The book offers an intimate, yet critical portrait of Brdecka, one of the founders of Czech animation, who created 35 short films and conceived and wrote scripts for feature films, winning numerous international awards. Profusely illustrated with original photos, personal documents, film stills, storyboards and drawings, Jiri Brdecka – Life – Animation –Magic is an acute vision of Brdecka’s inner world, his ironic and poetic sensibility and his impact on the world of animation and film.
Giannalberto Bendazzi is the Italian film historian, independent scholar, the visiting professor of the history of animation at various world universities: Nanyang Technological University of Singapore ( 2013 -2015), the Griffith University in Brisbane (since 2001), Università degli Studi di Milano (2002-2009). He started his career as a journalist but by the end of the 1990s he had lectured extensively worldwide. An acclaimed author in his sphere, his best known book is Cartoons: 100 Years of Cinema Animation (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1994), a world history of the medium published in Italian, English, French, Spanish and Persian. Bendazzi also wrote Alexeieff – Itinéraire d’un maître / Itinerary of a Master (Paris: Dreamland, 2001 in English and French), devoted to the famous auteur of avant-garde short films. Bendazzi‘s prolific written works include live-action cinema, especially comedy, as shown by his books The Films of Woody Allen (Fabbri, 1984) and Mel Brooks (Il Formichiere, 1977). His principal passion and dedication remains animation. In order to promote this medium Bendazzi writes books, retrospectives, articles, essays, contributes to and participates in festivals, delivers lectures, classes and so on. Website: http://giannalbertobendazzi.com/
Tereza Brdeckova is a Czech film critic, screenplay writer, novelist and journalist working for various prestigious dailies and magazines, as well as the Czech Radio. She is a graduate of the Film and TV School of Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) who, after the revolution in 1989, worked at Barrandov Film Studio as a dramaturge. Later she was the art director of the International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary and of Febiofest festival in Prague. She wrote various film screenplays and 6 novels. In 1997 she had a talk show on the Czech National TV aimed at senior citizens which was also awarded by the Syndicate of Journalists in 1999. Together with her husband (songwriter, poet, writer and translator) Jiri Dedecek she founded the publishing house Limonadovy Joe for which she translated and edited various publications. The book Jiri Brdecka: Life – Animation – Magic was published by Limonadovy Joe in 2015. Website: http://limonadovyjoe.com/