Setkání s Petrem Sísem

Petr Sís (b. 1949 in Brno) is the elder son of film director Vladimír Sís (e.g. Ballad for a Bandit). Already as a teenager, he became famous in the role of one of the first disc jockeys in our country (together with Pavel Černocký). His interest in beat music led him to his first artistic ventures, he created album covers, movie posters and illustrations. He later graduated from VŠUP and also started working on animated films. His film Heads (1980, musical accompaniment by Zdeněk Liška) won the main prize - the Golden Bear - at the film festival in what was then West Berlin.
He emigrated after 1982, or rather stayed in the USA. Based on an offer from the Los Angeles Olympic Games Committee to make an animated sports jingle on the theme of rowing, he received permission to travel to the USA. When the Eastern Bloc countries decided to boycott the Summer Olympics, he was ordered to immediately return to Czechoslovakia. At the time, Sís was working on a music video for Bob Dylan's You Gotta Serve Somebody intended for the then-starting MTV, so he delayed his return until his stay abroad became illegal for the Czechoslovak authorities.
Today he is an internationally recognized creator of books for children and young adults, illustrator and artist. Author of twenty-seven books and prepared illustrations for approximately another sixty. He also shot a number of animated films and works on movie posters (including the American poster for Forman's Amadeus), visual objects and wall paintings. He created mosaics in the New York subway or giant tapestries at the airports in Prague and Dublin.

The speaker will be Joachim Dvořák, owner of the Labyrint publishing house, which publishes Petr Sís's books.