Biography: Working primarily during the 1980s, Jiří Barta flourished during communist rule in the former Czechoslovakia, as funding was easily accessed through government grants, allowing students to develop at their own pace and direction. Initially dabbling with cutout shorts, Barta later experimented with stop-motion and puppetry, and within seven years of his first short completed The Pied Piper of Hamelin, still considered a masterpiece of Czech animation.