Bretislav Pojar

I love love love love this! Its called Pojd'te pane budeme si hrat and was designed by Miroslav Stepanek and directed by Bretislav Pojar. I discovered this joyful and incredible animation in a shop in Prague. It was an extraordinary find and like nothing I've ever seen before.

The series is over 40 years old, however looks fresh, stylized, effortless and is as vital as any stop motion animation created today. Although pojd'te pane is in another language I can understand how the characters feel just by looking at them. The furry felt like bears, with their distinctive voices were animated on top of a sheet of glass so only half of the puppet was constructed. These enchanting creatures work so well in a flat enviroment yet still look fully dimensional.

My favourite episode, 'Opardalu kitery vonel,' sees the two bears competing to win the affections of a beautiful, alluring, mysterious cat. The small bear morphs into different articles in the attempt to tend to the feline's every need. The big bear becomes increasingly jealous and decides to win the fair lady for himself. When we see him pummeling his chest in a Tarzan manner, we know that he means business. It all goes terribly wrong and as we suspected in the beginning, the kitty is not a fan of cross breeding and finds herself a tom cat to spend the rest of her days with. The bear's heartbreak is short lived and before too long they are back to playing and morphing again.