Prague Stories

Cesky Sen Movie Director

Mr. Garrison Gives Tips

July thirty first, I am now a bit familiar with the city, so getting around is simple. The public transportation is great, well besides the occasional long wait for night trams, another story altogether. So, here I go Metro A to Staromestska, the daily track, then FAMU an old historical building facing the river, our place of study. Today my task is to finish the research on Gene Deitch, an old, very well known, respected animator from America, who has been living in Prague for over forty years. He likes to refer to himself as the only free American living in Prague during Communism. Tomorrow I will go to Barrandov Studios to interview him and his wife. Gene is a director of 2d children animations and has been doing it for over fifty years. He has directed cartoons such as Tom and Jerry and Popeye. His wife Zdenka Deitchova is the production manager at Barrandov Studios and has worked there for over sixty years! I am excited about meeting them tomorrow, even more excited about seeing them work. Tonight we are watching a documentary, Cesky sen movie, with director Filip Remunda attending. I have been trying to take advantage of my time here by reading and watching as much work from Czech people as possible. It is great that we get to see a documentary and have the director in attendance. Interpretation is fun, but there is insight in hearing someone explain their work.

Today we screen our first documentaries in class. It has been a challenging process. The assignment was to be paired into groups, two or three people, given a tram or metro stop and asked to get off somewhere on the stop and find a story. My group consisted of Andrew, Chase and myself - an interesting dynamic, because of our apparent outward appearances and personalities. We worked well together and had a good time. Our film is about the difficulties of a totalitarian regime as experienced by two elder people and how their lives have changed since the revolution in 1989. I think it was a successful piece. It forced us to go out and interact with real people from another culture and communicate with them on an intellectual level. So today, we enter class. I am nervous, always nervous before showing my work. We screen last, so the sweat builds uncomfortably on my palms; repeating the motion of wiping my hands on the side of my pants. The other films are good. Ours begins, Andrew volunteers to work the audio. Applause.