Russell Merritt is a film studies professor at UC Berkeley and co-author of Walt in Wonderland and the forthcoming Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies. He also presents a program of UPA cartoons on September 26.

Trnka's first films, the Disneyesque The Animals and the Brigands (Zviratka a petrovsti, 1946, 9 mins) and a slapstick treatment of the German occupation, The Springer and the SS (Perak a SS, 1946, 13 mins), were revolutionary. Then came his many unforgettable puppet films, from the 1949 Song of the Prairie (Arie prerie, 21 mins), an affectionate parody of the Western, to his last film The Hand (Ruka, 1965, 19 mins), a dark allegory about artistic freedom in a totalitarian society, considered his masterwork. When Trnka died in 1969 (at the age of 57) he was given a state funeral; four months later, The Hand was banned. Also on the program: Archangel Gabriel and Mother Goose (Archandel Gabriel a pani husa, 1964, 29 mins). See October 7 for a free screening of Trnka's The Czech Year.