Zagreb Film is Croatian film-producing company from Zagreb, founded in 1953. They have produced hundreds of animated films, documentaries, television commercials, educational films and several feature films .In 1956. Zagreb Film formed the Studio for Animated Film. Thanks to the art film animation , this film company will soon reach world fame. The late fiftieeths and early sixtieths were characterised by huge international success of the Zagreb School of Animated Film. It is represented by authors like Nikola Kostelac, Vatroslav Mimica, Duan Vukoti and Vladimir Kristl. The first major success was a Grand Prix award in Venice for the animated short Samac (Lonely guy) by Vatroslav Mimica.Among many prizes won by Zagreb Film, in 1962 Duan Vukoti won the American Academy Award for the animated film The Ersatz (Surogat) and became the first non-american Oscar winner. Surogat is a simple story about the man who takes a trip to the beach and every object he brings with him, no matter how unlikely, is inflatable. After that Nedeljko Dragi with his film Tup-Tup and Zlatko Grgi (in collaboration with Bob Godfrey, Great Britain) with the film Dream Doll were nominated for the Oscar. In thirty years of rich production independent animated films from Zagreb won a number of international awards and recognitions This school has given over 400 film titles to the European film heritage.In its history Zagreb Film produced four animated series: Hound for Hire, Inspector Mask, Professor Balthazar and The Little Flying Bears, and the last two had great success on TV screens worldwideTheir probably most famous product was the cartoon series Professor Balthazar (Croatian: Profesor Baltazar), created by Zlatko Grgi, about an amusing professor who solved various imaginative problems. Fifty-nine episodes of the cartoon were made between 1967 and 1974The cartoon has been shown in subsequent years in several countries besides the former Yugoslavia, including United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Spain, Iran, Greece, Canada and Zimbabwe. The cartoon was also shown in the United States in the 1980s on Pinwheel as well as on the ABC in AustraliaThe Little Flying Bears (Croatian: Mali letei medvjedii) is an animated television series produced by Zagreb Film and CinGroupe. It was a Canadian/Croatian co-production which originally aired in 1990. This cartoon helps children realize the importance of protecting the environment. The series shows the harmful effects of pollution and fires as well as the important role of the ecosystem.The Zagreb school was revolutionary for the animations of the 1950s, because it abandoned the Disney-like cartoon style, and introduced visual elements of avant-garde abstract painting, constructivism and cubism. The Zagreb school was lively and successful during the 1960s and early 1970s, but after that Croatian animation faded and today it does not have the global role it used to have.The highly regarded Italian reviewer and publicist, a specialist for animated film Giannalberto Bendazzi in 1999 made a list of 88 biggest animated films in the history of world animation and he included no less than 8 films by Zagreb Film.Zagreb Festival is considered one of the four most significant animated film festivals in the world, along with Annecy (France), Hiroshima (Japan) and Ottawa (Canada), and it is known under the slogan Z is for Zagreb.