yugoslavian animation school. zagreb

AD 502 - Seminar in Contemporary Theory | Fall 2006 | Daria Tsoupikova | School of Art and Design | UIC

Yugoslavian animation school. Zagreb

Dusan VukoticNedeljko DragicBorivoj DovhikovicPavao StalterZlatko Grgic


Animation is protesting against rigid forms. Animation, which only conveysnatural movements cannot be creative animation. Animation is a technicalprocess the result of which has to be creative.

Animation means breathing spirit and life into a drawing, not by simplycopying reality but by giving it a design.

Life is warmth. Warmth is movement. Movement is life.Animation can be lukewarm or boiling.Cold animation isn't animation; it is like a stillborn child. Making animatedcartoons means rubbing tree-trunks against each other until there is a sparkperhaps or just a little bit of smoke.

Take a kilogram of ideas (if possible not too confused), fifty kilograms of talent,and a few thousand drawings. Stir it well and then with a bit of luck you won'tget the right answer to your question."

Borivoj Dovnikovic, Ante Zaninovic, Zlatko Grgic, Vladimir Jutrisa,Aleksandar Marks, Dusan Vukotic and Nedeljko Dragic


• 1927 born in Bileca, Bosnia and Herzegovina.Studied architecture and worked as a cartoonist on Kerempuh

He is the best known member of the Zagreb school of animated films. He was one of the founding members of Zagreb Film and had worked there for over four decades.

Wrote scripts for the number of Zagreb films, supervised and directed many short and full feature productions

• 1951-1952 Head of the studio at Duga Film

• 1951 How Kico was born

• 1952 The haunted castle at Dudinci

• 1952 Duga Film closed down

Dusan Vukotic (1927 - 1998)


With Kostelac (production manager) and other cartoonists made advertising films on their own doing commissions from factories and business concerns. Material resources and availability of cels (transparent celluloids ) were limited

and the process of “reduced animation” was discovered.

Drawings reduced to barest minimum

Freedom from realistic movement of characters

Characteristic life of their own

Increasing film tempo

Enriching scenes with new forms of expression

Duga film cartoon required 12.000-15,000 drawings

Reduced it came down to 4,000-5,000 drawings



New ways to compose the scene

Paint the background

Ad sound effects

Construct bold graphic

Build proper atmosthere

Edit tensions

Fantastic dynamic feeling of these cartoons charmed the public



• 1956 The magic catalogue

• 1956 The playful robot

• 1957 Cowboy Jimmie

• 1958 Concerto for sub machine gun

• 1958 The great fear

• 1959 Piccolo the first Oscar winning foreign animation

• 1961 Ersatz - Oscar for best animated short

• 1962 Play – voted best short film of the year at Mannheim

• 1998 died in Zagreb at the age of 71.



• 1936 born in Paklenica, Yugoslavia

• 1945 studied law in Zagreb University but didn't finish the studies.

• 1953 worked as cartoonist for a number of newspapers and journals

• 1964 published a book of his cartoons Alphabet for illiterates

Nedeljko Dragic b. 1936


1959- 1970 an illustrator in Vjesnik u srijedu magazine

• 1960s started to work in Zagreb Film, first as a designer, later as a director.

• 1965 Elegy

• 1966 Tamer of Wild horses

• 1967 Diogenes perhaps

• 1969 Passing days

• 1969 Per aspera ad astra

• 1969 Striptease

• 1970 created the daily comic strip Tupko on Vecernij List review.



Borivoj Dovhikovic (Bordo) b. 1930

• 1930 born in 1930 in Osijek, former Yugoslavia.

• 1949 enrolled into the Academy of Fine Arts

• 1950 joyned a group of cartoonistsfrom Kerempuh, a popular satiricalmagazine of Yogoslavia



1950 started mastering art of animation and an animated film production.

• 1951 The Big Meeting (1951), which is considered the beginning of the modern Croatian/Yugoslav animation, and from which later developed the Zagreb School of Animation.

• 1951 left the Academy and devoted himself to professional animation, cartooning, illustration, comic-strips, and graphic design.

• 1961 A Doll

• 1964 Without Title

• 1964 A History of Costume

• 1965 The Ceremony



• 1966 Curiosity - included in the program of the 84 best films in the history, titled "Jewels of a Century," and shown at Annecy 2000.

• 1967 Krek

• 1969 Strange Bird

• 1970 The Flower Lovers

• 1972 a Festival Council member and the president of the Program Committee of the World Festival of Animated Films in Zagreb

• 1973 Second Class Passenger



1976 N.N.

• 1977- 1982 a member of the Board of ASIFA, the International Association of Animated Films.

• 1978 Learning To Walk

• 1982 One Day of Life

• 1989 The Exciting Love Story

• 1985- 1991 as the Festival director of the World Festival of Animated Films in Zagreb

• 1995 Saved in the Nick of Time

• Worked for the Beograd humor weekly Jez (The Hedgehog) and other Zagreb and Yugoslav newspapers as cartoonists



From 1994 regularly published cartoons in the Zagreb based magazine Croatian the Left

interest in the field of graphic design, typography and drawing, newspaper advertisement, poster, trade-mark, mascot, periodicals, books, etc. He has created or re-designed the logotypes for a number of Croatian companies.

• 1990 national award he received in Croatia for the best illustrated book for children.

During his 50-year professional career he has received a number of international grants and awards for his independent animated films (Columbus, New York, Leipzig, Krakow, Berlin, Zagreb, San Antonio, Chicago, Hollywood, Varna, Annecy, etc.).

• 1994-2000 he served as ASIFA's Secretary General.

• 1995 a Lifetime Achievement Award - at the Antennacinema Cartoon '95 in Treviso, Italy.



• 2000 a Lifetime Achievement Award for his50 years of contribution to modern animation at the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival in Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

Bordo had special presentations of his retrospectives in: Paris (Cinematheque

Francaise), Lucca (Italy), Moscow, Erevan (Russia), Varna (Bulgaria),

Barcelona (Spain), Prague (Czeck Republic), Bratislava, (Slovakia), Tampere

(Finland), Ottawa, Montreal (Cinematheque Quebecoise), New York (Museum

of Modern Art), in 15 cities of the USA (a tour in 1994), Krok (Ukraine),

Kecskemet (Hungary), Birmingham (USA), and Ljubljana, Zagreb, Osijek, and

Cacak (UR Yugoslavia). His films were also presented within programs of

Zagreb Film all over the world.


Pavao Stalter b. 1929

• 1929 born in Karanac, Yugoslavia

Graduated from Academy of Fina Arts in Zagreb

Was brought to animation by Bourek

• 1958 began as a background painter on Vrbanic’s Ballad


Pavao Stalter b. 1929

Master of painting in miniature

Worked with Vucotic, Dovnikovic, Grgic, and other animatiors contributed to more then 30 films at Zagreb

• 1964 The fifth – formed a tem with Grgic

• 1969 Scabies

• 1965 The musical Pig

• 1967 help Grgic with Boxes

• 1967 The mask of the red death – with Ranitovic

• 1972 Prayer


Zlatko Grgic (1931 - 1988)

• 1931 born in Zagreb, Yugoslavia.

• Studied journalism and law

• 1951 started to make cartoons and contributed to Kerempuh

• 1957 assisted animator for Opening Night by Kostelac

• 1960s emigrated to Canada

Directed, assisted, animated, writed scripts, produced with Vucotic, Vrbanic, Kristl, Stalter, Godfrey and other animators

• 1966 The musical pig


Zlatko Grgic (1931 - 1988)

• 1968 Tolerance

• 1968 Suitcase

• 1971 Hot stuff

• 1977 Deep threat

• 1979 The dream doll producer Bob Godfrey - nominated for Oscar

• 1984 Anijam

• 1988 died in Montreal, Canada

yugoslavian animation school. zagreb

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