The legendary film director Jiří Barta (The Pied Piper, The Extinct World of Gloves...) has created in Toys in the Attic, a fantastic and secret world in an old attic full of discarded knick-knacks, toys and assorted junk.

Jiří Barta - Writer/Director

Jiří Barta is a Czech born, stop-motion-animation director who has been called “The European Tim Burton” for his visually stunning blending of the fantastic with the macabre.  Barta’s films, many of which used the medium of wood for animation, have garnered international critical acclaim and many awards, most notably, “The Pied Piper of Haemlin.”  But after the fall of the communist government in Czechoslovakia in the early 1990’s, Barta faced a changing business and governmental climate for the arts and found himself struggling to adjust to the new economics of film production in former Soviet-bloc nations.

After struggling for 15 years (including significant pre-production work on “Golem”), he ultimately managed  to release his first computer-animated short film in 2006.  Since 1993 he has been the head tutor of the Artistic-Industrial University in Prague, Studio of Film and Television Graphics. In 2001 he was appointed a professor.  In recent years, Jiří Barta has focussed extensively on commissioned animated productions for businesses and academia, including animated advertising, corporate logos (such as MTV) and illustrations. He also graphically cooperates on Prague theater and film productions.

His spectacularly crafted animated feature,TOYS IN THE ATTIC, took Barta and a team of over fifty animators, artists and illustrators more than three years to meticulously animate one frame at a time.  In 2010, The film was discovered by Daniel Leseour, President of Paris-based Eurocine Films, who acquired worldwide sales representation / distribution rights from Barta’s production company and production partnerships.  Eurocine engaged American writer Vivian Schilling to adapt the film into English, and to produce and direct the conversion of the film’s dialogue tracks in to English (including the hiring and directing of all voice talent performers).  TOYS IN THE ATTIC will be Barta’s first USA Theatrical release, an achievement and career milestone which he calls“very, very exciting!”  Next up for Barta is his long-sought labor-of-love, the stop-motion animated feature “Golem,” planned for production beginning late 2012 and a two-year production schedule.

JIŘÍ BARTA is one of the great inspiring personalities of both Czech and world animated film. His work has regularly taken Grand Prize at prestigious film festivals; indeed, films such as THE PIED PIPER and THE EXTINCT WORLD OF GLOVES are among the treasures of world animation.