Paul and Sandra Fierlinger

What: Screening: "My Dog Tulip"
When: 9:00 pm Saturday, April 10, 2010
Where: Mainstage Theater, (HCC Performing Arts Building)
Tickets: $10

Paul Fierlinger

Paul Fierlinger

Paul Fierlinger was born in 1936 in Ashiya, Japan, where his parents were Czechoslovak career diplomats. He spent the WWII years in the United States and then, at the age of twelve, while living in a boarding school in Podebrady, Czechoslovakia, Fierlinger created his first animated film by shooting drawings from his flipbook with a 16mm Bolex.

In 1955 he graduated from the Bechyne School of Applied Arts. After two years of military service he free-lanced in Prague as a book illustrator and gag cartoonist for cultural periodicals under the pen name Fala.

Fierlinger established himself in 1958 as Czechoslovakia's first independent producer of animated films, providing 16mm films from his home studio for Prague TV and the 16mm division of Kratky Film. Thus, he created approximately 200 films, ranging from 10-second station breaks to 10-minute theatrical releases and TV children's shorts.

In 1967 Fierlinger escaped from Czechoslovakia to Holland where he pitched for a number of station breaks for Dutch television in Hilversum. He then went to Paris to work for a short stint as a spot animator for Radio Television France and ended up in Munich for half a year having been offered the job of key animator on the feature film "The Conference of the Animals" at Linda Films.

In Munich, prior to his departure to the U.S., he married a Czechoslovak compatriot and photographer, Helena Strakova.

He arrived in the United States in 1968 where he first worked for Universal Pictures as a documentary director ("Prague, The Summer of Tanks"). For a short period the Fierlingers moved to Burlington Vermont to work for a local TV station and there, a first son, Philip was born.

In 1969 Fierlinger settled in Philadelphia where he was hired by Concept Films to animate political commercials for Hubert Humphrey and other political candidates. In 1971 Peter, a second son was born.

Fierlinger formed AR&T Associates, Imc., his own animation house in 1971, initially to produce animated segments for ABC's Harry Reasoner Specials and PBS' Sesame Street, including the popular "Teeny Little Super Guy" series, which runs to this day.

Since 1971, AR&T has produced over 800 films, of which several hundred are television commercials. Many of these films received considerable recognition including an Academy Award nomination for "It's so Nice to Have a Wolf Around the House". Other awards include Cine Golden Eagles, and Best in Category Awards at festivals in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Annecy, Ottawa, Zagreb, Milan, Melbourne, Prague, London, and many other cities and countries, well over a hundred major film festival awards all together.

"And Then I'll Stop...", a 1989 film on drug and alcohol abuse has received more awards than any other film of his, including First Prize in Aspen, Colorado, and was selected for screening at MOMA's New Films, New Directors series and the London Royal Film Festival. At that time, Paul and Helena were divorced and their two young adult sons moved to San Francisco to pursue their own careers in computer and multi media productions.

Fierlinger became a steady provider of many TV commercials and sales films for US Healthcare, winning a variety of international awards. At this time he met and married Sandra Schuette, a fine arts painter (the Boston Museum of Art School and Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts).

Sandra Fierlinger

Sandra Fierlinger

Sandra Schuette Fierlinger grew up in Wayne, Pennsylvania, and graduated in 1978 from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with their highest awards. She has collaborated with her husband, Paul, on several dozen films for Sesame Street, Nickelodeon, the American Playhouse, the Children's Book of the Month Club and ITVS/PBS.