Bedřich Baťka

Biography

Beda Batka (August 21, 1922 – June 6, 1994) was a Czech and American cinematographer and a teacher in the Tisch School of the Arts. Batka started his career as a camera operator on the movie On the Right Track (1948). In Czechoslovakia he frequently worked with director Jiří Weiss. Batka told Weiss a story that happened at his wife's workplace. Weiss decided to use this story as a basis for his film Ninety Degrees in the Shade. In 1967 Batka was a director of photography for František Vláčil's Marketa Lazarová, which was later voted the best Czech movie of all time. After he emigrated to USA, he taught cinematography at the Tisch School of the Arts. Among his students were Barry Sonnenfeld, Bill Pope, and the late Ken Kelsch. The best known movie he worked on in America was Little Darlings.