Biography

Jirí Brdecka was a Czech animator, film director, screenwriter, and satirist. He was born in the city of Hranice in Moravia, which was then part of Austria-Hungary. His father was the author Otakar Brdecka (1881 - 1930), who published works under the pen name "Alfa".

Brdecka was educated at the Charles University in Prague, where he studied philosophy and aesthetics. The German occupation in Czechoslovakia resulted in the shut down of the university in 1939, forcing Brdecka to seek employment,.He was hired as an administrative clerk by the Prague Municipal Museum, while moonlighting as a journalist and cartoonist for various newspapers.

From 1941 to 1942, Brdecka was employed as a press agent by the film studio Lucernafilm. In 1943, he started working as an animator, producing a number of short films. By the late 1940s, Brdecka was employed as a film director and screenwriter at Barrandov Studios. In 1958, he started directing his own animated feature films, while continuing to serve as a screenwriter for many other directors.

Besides his film career, Brdecka had side careers as a journalist, a film critic, and a novelist.His works on and off the screen were noted for their satirical content. As a screenwriter, he often worked on parody films, such as the comedy western "Lemonade Joe".

Brdecka died in 1982. He was 64-years-old. His daughter Tereza Brdecková had her own career as a film critic.
- IMDb mini biography by: Dimos I

Czech animator, novelist and playwright. A former illustrator and student in art history at Prague University, he became noted after World War II for his animated fairy-tales, as well as a series of stories, parodying the American West, entitled "Lemonade Joe".

Brdecka came up in the ranks as an animator after the Second World War by working with the already renowned Jiri Trnka.

His name is pronounced "Yih-rzhee Ber-detsch-kah".

[on his collaboration with Jiří Trnka]: "I was proud that he accepted a lot of my ideas, but I don't overestimate my contribution. There was only one way to become a really valid collaborator with Trnka: to melt into him like a sugar cube, but keep a cool distance."

[on collaboration with Jan Werich on The Emperor and the Golem (1952)]: "Werich didn't turn me away from the collaboration just because he liked our chatting. I was just the sorcerer's apprentice. Nothing changed in the plot structure, but the difference between my draft and Werich's treatment was like between a wooden mannequin and a living person."