Milan, 4 June 2004

The European exhibitors now taking part in "Focus on Europe - Kidflix Special" organised by MEDIA Salles in the Czech Republic, began their day with a visit to the Zlín Production Studios. Today's visit also took them back to the early days of animated film: founded in 1936, according to the wishes of Tomas Bata, in order to produce publicity for his shoes, the studios underwent changes over time, thanks also to great talents such as Hermina Tyrlova and Karel Zeman, becoming fully-fledged film studios for the production of animated films. It is to Zeman, whose creative talent produced "Mr Prokouk", the character that starred in so many films and who has now become the symbol of the festival, that we owe the experimentation which led to the production of films combining puppets, animated drawings, real-life actors and special effects in the '50s.
The studios, which were enlarged during the communist regime - when Zlín was given the name Gottwaldov - and which are still in operation, also house an film school specialising in animation.
The day continued with the screening of a film - Jinak (A Different Way), a Swedish-French co-production - and with workshops focusing on initiatives for children and young people, and with the presentation of a unique series of machinery from before the days of the cinema, built by the Italian company Barz and Hippo, which runs training activities for schools: models re-constructed from descriptions, drawings and photographs, in order to show children how a drawing becomes a film. Some of the festival's young spectators took part in the workshop, trying out devices such as the "perspective viewer": an optical instrument dating back to the 1700s, used by the master of perspective Canaletto.

For further information:
MEDIA Salles
Via Soperga, 2
20127 Milano
Tel.: +39.02.66984405 - Fax: +39.02.6691574
E-mail: infocinema@mediasalles.it

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