| Catalogue number | 0685 |
|---|---|
| Date of issue | 1.6.2011 |
| Face value | 10 CZK |
| Print sheets | 30 stamps |
| Size of picture | 30 x 23 mm |
| Graphic designer | Otakar Karlas, Zdeněk Smetana |
| Engraver Printing method | Bohumil Šneider rotary recess print in black combined with photogravure in brown, blue, red and yellow |
This year's stamp of the series For Children commemorates Zdeněk Smetana, Czech animator, screenwriter and graphic designer.
Smetana was born on July 26th, 1925 in Prague. He worked in the Bratři v triku film studio and as a director in the Krátký film Praha film studio, received more than fifty awards at both national and international film shows and festivals, including a Golden Lion, Golden Bear, British Academy Film Award, created a large number of characters and helped animate popular Czech TV bedtime stories, such as Pohádky z mechu a kapradí (featuring Křemílek and Vochomůrka),Rákosníček, Štaflík a Špagetka, Radovanovy radovánky and Malá čarodějnice (The Little Witch). He also illustrated several children's books.
Aged no more than a couple of centuries, the Little Witch is still too young for a fully qualified professional witch. Despite her poor command of magic, she's dying to see the fabulous annual witches' Sabbat soon to be held on an isolated mountain. Abraxas, her old raven, tries to dissuade her, but she won't listen! Hidden in bushes on the mountain, she finds it impossible to stand back and joins the dancing witches. The witch in chief commands the culprit to become a "good" witch in no longer than a year's time! The Little Witch understands it to mean that she is supposed to conjure the good, and not to be good in conjuring the bad, and immediately starts increasing her proficiency as a "good" witch. She conjures bundles of wood to help poor old women, helps an ill-treated horse, adds a charming smell causing euphoria to a poor flower girl's paper roses. But her good doings do not fail to leave heartburnings in a Little Witch's colleague, and when the Little Witch breaches the strict ban on Friday conjuring and helps two small children one Friday, she is punished with a heavy frost and snowstorm. She is able to turn the bad into a good magic, however, and the calamity ends in a merry carnival and snowmen building fun. By then it is time for the next annual Sabbat where the Little Witch is about to pass the qualification examination consisting of three tasks.
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