Beda Batka

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 and proteges were Fred Elmes, Barry Sonnenfeld, Bill Pope, and Ken Kelsch. The best known movie he worked on in America was Little Darlings.

Filmography Year Title Notes 1963 Fear 1963 The Golden Fern 1964 Láska nebeská Short film 1965 Ninety Degrees in the Shade 1966 Sign of the Cancer 1966 Marketa Lazarová 1967 Four in a Circle 1972 In Pursuit of Treasure 1979 The Orphan 1980 Little Darlings