In 1958, at the Cannes Film Festival, film critic Georges Sadoul saw animated films produced by Zagreb Film for the first time. He observed that those films had some common elements: a drawing rather resembling a sketch, no verbal expressions, just music and sounds, their topics were of serious nature. At that occasion, Sadoul devised the term Zagreb School of Animation and since then it has been used for Zagreb Film's cartoon production. In the history of animated film, Zagreb School of Animation stands for a moment of extraordinary creativity. It brought together artistic talents who had a strong wish for experimentation. After only a few attempts, they could not find new inspiration in the classical, Disney-like cartoon. Contrary to it, they turned its model completely upside-down: instead of three-dimensional space that with Disney had to create the illusion of spatial reality, they formed a space with only two dimensions (two-dimensional figures moved on white paper that served as a background). They were rather sketchy and only indicated forms, but could still be recognized. The continuity of movement was reduced, broken, and abstract (for Disney it had to be as close to real movement as possible). In their films, the authors defied the laws of physics. In the use of music there were also changes - noises, sound effects, and music did not just follow real movement, but became a part of the film's content or a counterpoint to the film image. Zagreb animation style insisted on stylized animation which increasingly moved towards graphic and visual solutions closer to artistic avant-garde. Zagreb authors introduced new topics to cartoons - existential and social questions, old age, death, illness and aggression - everything that Disney had carefully avoided in his films. The first animated films in Zagreb were made as early as 1922 by Sergej Tagatz. They were two short commercials. Some twenty years later, the Neugebauer brothers made several films in which they entirely followed Disney's concept of full, voluminous drawing. Then a group of young authors, gathered around the satirical magazine Kerempuh, started a cartoon production with strong support of the director Fadil Hadžić, but made just one film, Great Meeting. It is important to also mention thirteen short promotive films, crucial for the development of animation in Zagreb. However, real and serious production in Zagreb Film had not started until 1956, when the Cartoon Studio was founded. As during one period they lost their place for work, the group gathered around Dušan Vukotić and Nikola Kostelac (they worked in his apartment) organized itself and started a production of commercials. This was in 1954 and 1955. Due to the lack of money and time, the authors reduced the number of drawings, brought the animation down to the essential, and started a new concept of reduced animation that introduced two-dimensionality and geometric properties in figures. Graphically simplified and reduced forms of drawings and figures also brought a differently stylized movement. The figures were freed of realistic movement that simultaneously brought both a longer lasting and a slowed down film rhythm. The movement of thus two-dimensionally conceived figures became more pronounced. The Zagreb School of Animation represented a major contribution to the aesthetics of animated film. The interesting point concerning the School was also its highly developed feeling of togetherness, thanks to which this group of authors worked side by side, exchanging experiences and cooperating. Without regard to often juxtaposed poetics, they were connected by the common goal - a quest for new themes, new styles, and new production methods. The foundation of the Animation Studio within Zagreb Film in 1956 soon enabled the production of short films, making it possible for young, creative talents to show what they can do. Very soon their films found recognition at international festivals. Thus only two years later a film by Vatroslav Mimica, Samac (The Loner) won the Grand Prix in Venice. This was the School's first great success. At that time Nikola Kostelac, Dušan Vukotić, Vatroslav Mimica, Vlado Kristl, and Borivoj Dovniković - Bordo joined the recently founded studio. The School's greatest success was the Oscar for the best animated film, awarded to Dušan Vukotić for his film Surogat (Substitute). This was the first time that a non-American film won a prize in this category. After Vukotić, Mimica, and Kristl, there was a new generation of authors (from mid-sixties to the end of the seventies), who showed a somewhat more relaxed approach, in the first place by selecting less serious topics and turning to playfulness and wittiness. Ronald Holloway called them gag-men and compared cartoons by Borivoj Dovniković, Pavao Štalter, Aleksandar Marks, Zlatko Bourek, Zlatko Grgić, Ante Zaninović, Milan Blažeković, Nedeljko Dragić, Dragutin Vunak, and Boris Kolar with American silent comedies. In 1978 Zdenko Gašparović made the film Satiemania, by many considered the best film of the Zagreb School. This is the period when the third and last phase of the School began, when new authors appeared, like Joško Marušić and Krešimir Zimonić. However, at that time began its decline, both in creative and production terms. Financial problems increasingly stifled film production, which along with many reasons of technical (e.g. lack of interest for the introduction of new technologies like the computer) and productional nature (the authors began to leave the Studio) led to the close-down of the School in the eighties. Its revival is not any more possible and it would also be pointless. Vanja Hraste, Curator