International Film Festival For Children And Youth Zlin

In preparation for the launch of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Zlin Film Festival, which officially opens on Sunday, May 30th, the Festival organization is displaying an art exhibit by one of its most famous native sons, Peter Sis, the Czech-born author, illustrator and filmmaker.

To be technical, Sis was born in Brno, which is less than 50 miles away, but Zlin has many right to claim him as one of their own. As the major film event devoted to children and young adult films, Sis' work as an author and illustrator of children's books provides a prefect tie-in for both the artist and the Festival. Peter Sís was born in Brno in 1949. He comes from an artistic family....his father was a filmmaker and his mother was an artist. As a child, Sís loved to draw and paint, making his first picture book when he was in kindergarten. As a teenager behind the Iron Curtain, Sís developed a "subversive" interest in Western culture, Allen Ginsberg’s beat poetry, long hair for men, blue jeans and rock and roll, particularly the music of The Beatles, The Beach Boys and The Rolling Stones. 

Sís was educated at The High School of Applied Arts and then the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague before going to London to study at the Royal College of Art in London, where he was a protege of Quentin Blake. When he graduated, he began a career as a filmmaker, eventually winning a Golden Bear Award for the animated short, Hlavy, at the 1980 Berlin Film Festival. In 1982, Sís was given permission to travel to the USA in order to make an animated film of Czechoslovakia's participation in the Olympics. When Czechoslovakia boycotted the Games, Sís decided not to return home. He applied for asylum in America and began working as an art teacher at the Otis Art Institute of Parson's School of Design in Los Angeles. In 1983 he collaborated with Bob Dylan on an animated music video for the song You Got to Serve Somebody, which won a CINE Golden Eagle Award.  A correspondence with famed illustrator Maurice Sendak culminated in an invitation to a meeting with Sendak and an introduction to children’s book editors.

Peter Sís moved to New York City in 1984 and began a new career as a children’s books illustrator. In 1986, his illustrations for Sid Fleischman’s Newbery Medal winning novel, The Whipping Boy, brought him national attention and his career as a children’s book illustrator started to take off. Following the publication of Follow the Dream in 1991, Sís met Jacqueline Onassis, then an editor at Doubleday Books, who then encouraged and oversaw The Three Golden Keys, which was published in 2001. In 2003, he became a MacArthur Fellow, an honor bestowed by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation recognizing “talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.”  In addition to his work as a children’s books illustrator, Sís has contributed thousands of drawings to the New York Times Book Review, and many other magazines, including Time Magazine, Atlantic Monthly and Newsweek. 

Sis has been a renaissance artist, having also created a mural for New York City’s 86th Street Lexington Avenue subway station and the poster artwork for Miloš Forman’s film Amadeus. He also created the Subway Whale poster for the New York City Transit Authority that was on view in subway cars throughout New York City. His work has been exhibited in Prague, London, Zurich, Hamburg, Los Angeles, and New York in both group and one-man shows.  

Among his many awards, Peter Sís has won The New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year award a record seven times. He was also awarded with the American Library Association's Caldecott Honor for the illustrations of his 1996 book Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei, the 1998 book Tibet Through The Red Box as well as his 2007 work, The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain. The latter book also received the American Library Association's 2008 Robert Silbert Medal for the most distinguished informational book for young readers. He has received a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award twice: for Tibet Through The Red Box (1999) and The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain (2008). For more information on Peter Sis, visit his website: www.petersis.com. For more information on the upcoming celebrations surrounding the Zlin Film Festival, visit: www.zlinfest.cz/en. 

Sandy Mandelberger, Festival Dailies Editor