Břetislav Pojar

Biography

Břetislav Pojar (7 October 1923 – 12 October 2012) was a Czech puppeteer, animator, and director of short and feature films. Born in Sušice, Czechoslovakia, Pojar started his career in the late 1940s with his work on The Story of the Bass Cello (1949) based on the story by Anton Chekhov and directed by master Czech puppet animator Jiří Trnka. Pojar served as a puppeteer under his mentor Trnka. Pojar compiled an extensive body of work as a director and animator in Czechoslovakia, where he made films in both puppet animation to the more common stop motion animation. In the mid-1960s, Pojar emigrated to Canada, where he began a long collaboration with the National Film Board. His Canadian work is some of his best known and has won awards at prestigious international film festivals. His film To See or Not to See (Psychocratie) won the Canadian Film Award for Film of the Year in 1970. Pojar's work is characterized by strong social commentary, such as in Balablok, where armies of small circle- and square-shaped beings war with each other until they are all wounded into indistinguishable shapes. Often, Pojar's shorts contain little or no spoken dialogue. In the mid-2000s, Pojar moved…

Directed

1. Winter Days (2003) — Director
2. The Lion and the Song (1959) — Director
3. 'E' (1981) — Director
4. Fimfarum 2 (2006) — Director
5. Balablok (1973) — Director
6. Nightangel (1986) — Director
7. The Flying Sneaker (1991) — Director
8. To See or Not to See (1969) — Director
9. Fanfaron, the Little Clown (1968) — Director
10. A Drop Too Much (1954) — Director
11. Car Fairy Tales (2011) — Director
12. Hey Mister, Let's Play! How They Met At Kolin (1966) — Director
13. BOOOM (1979) — Director
14. The Midnight Adventure (1960) — Director
15. Hey, Mister, Let’s Play! Princesses Are Not to Be Sniffed At (1967) — Director
16. The Apple Tree Maiden (1974) — Director
17. On a Cat's Word (1961) — Director
18. The Gingerbread House (1951) — Director
19. Ideál (1964) — Director
20. Dobrodružství na Zlaté zátoce (1955) — Director
21. Billiard (1962) — Director
22. Narco Blues (2016) — Director
23. If... (1981) — Director
24. Paraplíčko (1957) — Director
25. School for Cats (1961) — Director
26. Josef Mánes (1951) — Director
27. A Few Words of Introduction (1963) — Director
28. Darwin Antidarwin (1969) — Director
29. Children First! (1996) — Director
30. Mouseology (1994) — Director
31. Pourquoi? (1995) — Director
32. Jak si zarídit byt — Director
33. Nazdar kedlubny (1974) — Director
34. Painting is for the Cats (1961) — Director
35. Hey, Mister, Let’s Play! How They Went to Sleep (1968) — Director
36. Spejbl on the Trail (1956) — Director
37. Hey, Mister, Let’s Play! How They Ate Witty Porridge (1967) — Director
38. Hey, Mister, Let’s Play! How the Bears Went Swimming (1966) — Director
39. Hey, Mister, Let’s Play! Hold On to Your Hat (1967) — Director
40. Co to bouchlo? (1971) — Director

Also appeared in

1. Skutečnost Noci svatojánské (1959) — Self
2. Anatomie gagu (2008)
3. GENUS (1995) — Self