This year´s International Festival of Puppet Theatre celebrates the spirit of Karel Zeman’s amazing, fantastic world of animation that inspired such filmmakers as Steven Spielberg or Terry Gilliam. During the festival you can visit Luuuuna Park in Park HaPaamon in Jerusalem where we prepared for you an exhibition of images from Karel Zeman's films and a special interactive station. There you can learn, try and understand the magic of film tricks before computers and Photoshop.

Karel Zeman (born 1910) -  a true successor to Georges Méliès, a wizard of the big screen, a brilliant pioneer of special effects in film - as he was often called, is one of the few Czech directors to be universally recognized in the world of cinema. He began working as head of the advertising section of a department store in Brno. In 1943, the film director Elmar Klos was sent to make a report about a window-dressing competition which Zeman had recently won. Klos was so taken by Zeman's work that he immediately offered him a job at the Bata Film Studios. Thus began the professional career of this later world famous film director and production designer.

Journey to the Beginning of Time released in 1955 became Zeman's breakthrough film, his first to combine live action, animation and puppetry. Four years later, Invention for Destruction saw him shoot to world-wide success. The film was immediately sold to 72 countries and became the most successful Czech film of all time. Zeman continued to develop his highly successful use of special effects in The Fabulous Baron Munchausen and the two Jules Verne adaptations that followed. In the 1970's, partly motivated by his love for children and the desire to create films specially for them - but also in part because of the difficulty of shooting live action movies - Zeman returned to making strictly animated films.

The Karel Zeman Museum in Prague takes care of the preservation, promotion and development of the legacy of the filmmaker Karel Zeman and presents his life and work to the public. It emphasizes the development of the Czech cinematic special effects and animation in the context of European and world cinema. The core of its activity consists of the interactive exhibition at the Karel Zeman Museum in Prague's Lesser Quarter, digital restoration of Zeman’s film and promotion of Czech cinematic special effects and animation through documentary and theoretical works. A co-founder of the museum is the director's daughter Ludmila Zemanová.

The International Festival of Puppet Theater is celebrating its 26th anniversary! What's on plan? 35 Israeli plays, 6 international plays, 27 kids plays, 14 adults plays and a multidisciplinary artistic project – Luuuuna Park.

The festival allows adults and kids as one a hang-out which is much more than just a play. In addition to the variety of plays that expose the audience to a wide range of styles in the world of puppet theater, with the best productions in Israel and abroad, the festival offers a variety of outdoor events for all ages. The emphasis in this year's festival is the beauty of diversity, and therefore you will find many countries with different cultures and messages, multilingualism, traditional and new media, play styles, presentation and various puppets. Visitors will be able to try on Zeman's film effects. In addition, film The Fabulous Baron Munchhausen will be screen in Jerusalem Cinematheque and in HaPa'amon Park will be an exhibition presenting the work of Karel Zeman.