Dušan Vukotić

Dušan Vukotić (7 February 1927 – 8 July 1998) was a Yugoslav and Croatian cartoonist, author and director of animated films of Montenegrin descent. He is the best known member of the Zagreb school of animated films.

Vukotić was born in Bileća, Bosnia and Herzegovina (at the time Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes).

In 1953 he was one of the founding members of Zagreb Film. He worked there for over four decades and directed cartoons such as Cow on the Moon.

He won an Oscar for best animated short in 1961 for Surogat ("Ersatz"), being the first foreigner to do so. Another of his films, Igra ("The Game"), was nominated for an Academy Award in 1964.

After the 1960s, he rarely made short animated films, making three full-length movies - a fantasy tale for children, Sedmi kontinent ("The Seventh Continent", 1966), an action movie, Akcija Stadion ("Operation Stadium") about the resistance of Zagreb students to the Ustaša regime in 1941, and the science fiction/horror parody Gosti iz galaksije ("Visitors from the Galaxy of Arkana", 1981). In 1963, he was a member of the jury at the 3rd Moscow International Film Festival.