LUBOMIR BENES

Lubomir Beneš (November 7, 1935 Prague) was a Czech animator and director of puppet films. The creator of the famous series Pat and Mat.
He grew up in the Hloubětín district of Prague. Since childhood, his parents have paid a private design teacher. After graduation, he went to war and then succeeded in 1957 in the audition of the film Krátký Praha. At the time, in the '60s, he was interested in animating the avant-gardes and the concept of the so-called sound of cartoons - for this purpose he collaborated with Norman McLaren and was part of the "kinetic" artistic group of Synthesis. In 1967 he started working with Jiří Trnka. Under his direction he made his first animated film called Homo (1967). In 1969 he attended the Biennial of Young Artists in Paris. In 1974 he made his first puppet film: Let me forgive. In two years the film "Kutáci" was born, in which puppet figures appeared of two initiatory fairies, which later became famous. Beneš wrote the theme, the screenplay and directed the film. Only the visual design of the characters was taken from Vladimír Jiránek's pen. The Puppet Grotesque was an extraordinary success, and soon the idea of ​​continuing in the form of the evening series was born. The series has been successful abroad.