Czech filmmaker who inspired Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam, returns to screens in English

The Karel Zeman Museum is easy to miss. You descend a staircase from Charles Bridge (a useful escape hatch on a sweltering summer afternoon), past a gelato stand, into a courtyard that opens into a museum dedicated to one of Czechia's most imaginative filmmakers.

If the name Karel Zeman doesn't immediately ring a bell, the names singing his pioneering praises probably will.

Director John Stevenson, who later co-directed Kung Fu Panda, has argued that Zeman deserves to be remembered alongside cinema's great pioneers of fantasy filmmaking, while directors including Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam have acknowledged his influence.

And now, thanks to a major restoration project, some of Zeman's most acclaimed films are returning to Prague cinemas with English subtitles, giving fans and film geeks a rare chance to experience them on the big screen.

The restoration project, supported by the Czech Ministry of Culture and European funding aims not to modernize the films, but to return them as closely as possible to how audiences saw them when they first premiered.

Restorers have focused on repairing decades of damage caused by scratches, fading, mold, and deterioration while preserving the handmade quality that defines his films.

The project is being overseen by restoration specialists together with representatives from the National Film Archive, while Zeman's daughter, Ludmila Zemanová, who worked on some of her father's later productions, serves as an artistic consultant.

"He had every film planned out in detail, including individual shots and budgets. And then, years later, my daughter and I found it all. The Japanese, who were preparing an exhibition about my father at the time, were thrilled with it. And it was thanks to the great interest from abroad that the idea of ​​building the Karel Zeman Museum in our country arose," Zemanová said in a recent interview with Czech Radio.

Zeman's fantastical body of work combines live actors with animation, miniatures, puppetry, painted scenery, and visual effects unlike anything being made elsewhere. His films took audiences to prehistoric worlds, Jules Verne-inspired adventures, magical kingdoms, and impossible landscapes that still feel surreal and yet surprisingly modern today, given the core of his work was in the mid-20th century.

The film that established Zeman's international reputation, Invention for Destruction (1958), which wowed the jury and public at the 1958 EXPO in Brussels, winning first prize and so successful that it was screened in 96 theaters simultaneously in New York alone. It remains one of his most visually striking creations.

Inspired by the novels and illustrations of Jules Verne, it places live actors inside a world that resembles a nineteenth-century adventure engraving brought to life. Nearly seventy years later, it still looks unlike anything else.

The museum devoted to the filmmaker's legacy reveals how all of these worlds were created. There are hand-painted backdrops, paper cut-outs, puppets, miniature sets, and displays that reveal how entire worlds were created decades before computer-generated effects existed.

Visitors can experiment with forced perspective, foreground paintings, layered images, and other techniques that Zeman used throughout his career. Each room is both an exhibition and a hands-on lesson in practical effects.

One of the most fascinating displays recreates a technique used during the filming of Journey to Prehistory. To hide modern features along the riverbank, the crew simply held up a painted canvas that blended seamlessly into the real landscape behind it. The illusion was so effective that even its reflection in the water appeared natural.

On one wall of the museum, a display shows how actors were filmed against empty backgrounds before dinosaurs and prehistoric landscapes were added later, frame by frame. Elsewhere, visitors can try some of Zeman's visual tricks for themselves using their phones.

Stevenson has said it was only after visiting the museum and seeing the effect recreated that he finally understood how it worked.

The Karel Zeman Museum is located at Saská 3, Prague 1, just below Charles Bridge on the Malá Strana side, and is open daily.

Current Prague screenings include: Tales of 1001 Nights at Edison Filmhub, Wednesday, June 24, at 7 p.m., in Czech with English subtitles, followed by a Q&A.

The Stolen Airship, Kino Atlas, Saturday, July 12, at 3:15 p.m., in Czech with English subtitles. Additional screenings are expected as the restoration project continues.