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,…