Masters of Czech animated film

I've mentioned on several occasions that I listen to what used to be the international short-wave broadcasters, although of course with advances in technology most of them have moved away from short-wave and on to the Internet. One advantage of this, however, is that it's a lot easier to recommend an interesting broadcast when it does come up.

This morning I got around to listening to Thursday's edition of Radio Prage, from the Czech Republic, and their cultural feature was Masters of Czech animated film:

In a new, six-part series, Radio Prague International traces the history of Czech animation, from its founders Jiří Trnka, Hermína Týrlová and Karel Zeman to the legendary surrealist filmmaker Jan Švankmajer. It will also focus on the present-day animation scene here in the Czech Republic, including FAMU student Daria Kascheeva, who received a student Oscar for her animated short.

Now, since the series just began, right now they only have a link to the first installment, on a couple of puppet animators I'd never heard of, Hermína Týrlová and Jiří Trnka, so this was all new to me, and interesting.

As always, you can listen to streaming audio, or download the MP3 (6.2MB, about 13 min). There's also a rough transcript of the program. I assume that once the other five episodes are, those will show up on the front page. And if you look at the sidebar on the right side of the page, they have some other interesting links for movie buffs, such as an interview they did with the late American animator Gene Deitch, who spent much of his working life in Prague.