Ersatz

Dušan Vukotić (1927 – 1998) was an award-winning cartoonist, author and director of animated films from Yugoslavia. 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 and had worked there for over four decades.

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 1960s, he rarely made short animated films, making three full-length movies – fantasy tale for children Sedmi kontinent (“The Seventh Continent”, 1966), action movie Akcija Stadion (“Operation Stadium”) about the resistance of the Zagreb students to the Ustaša regime in 1941, and science fiction/horror parody Gosti iz galaksije (“Visitors from the Galaxy of Arkana”, 1981).

He also was teaching film directing at Zagreb Academy for Dramatic Art since the founding of its Film department in 1967 up to his retirement in early 1990s.

After 1973, he was a member of Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts.

In time of death Vukotic was preparing the production of his new science fiction movie, co-written by the Croatian science fiction writer Aleksandar Ziljak.

Vukotić died in Krapinske Toplice near Zagreb at the age of 71. —Wikipedia