Zbiral, Jerri

Czech, b. 1948

BiographyJerri Zbiral is a filmmaker, photographer, and activist. Born Jaroslava Irena Zbíralová in Prague in the former Czechoslovakia in 1948, Zbiral is the child of a survivor of the Lidice massacre of 1942, in which a Bohemian village was razed by Nazi troops in retaliation for the assassination of Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich. The Zbirals left Czechoslovakia in 1949, spending a year in a refugee camp in Murnau, Germany, before relocating to Norway for three years, and then to Montreal, Canada, in 1954.

Zbiral began recording the stories of her relatives and other survivors of the Lidice massacre in 1982. Years later, she produced the documentary In the Shadow of Memory (1999) with her husband, Allan Teller, and director Jack Comforty. The film incorporates historic footage and contemporary interviews to address both the history of the tragedy and how it impacted Zbiral’s life. In the Shadow of Memory received numerous awards, including: the Ciné Goldern Earle award; Bronze Award, Worldfest Flagstaff International Film Festival; Official Selection, Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Czech Republic; and Award of Excellence, Documentary Division, The Communicator Awards.

Jerri Zbiral completed an MFA at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY, in 1974. She subsequently moved to Chicago, IL, and has lived in the area ever since, becoming an American citizen in 2000. Since the 1970s, she has been active in establishing a number of photography-related programs on Chicago's west side, including the Inner-City Photo Workshop, the Public Art Workshop Photography Center, and programs at the Uptown Center Hull House and the Howland Elementary School. Zbiral is the recipient of numerous grants, including a photography project documenting the Laotian Hmong community in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago in the 1980s. The Chicago Filmmakers provided fiscal support for her 2008 documentary film Never Turning Back: the World of Peggy Lipschutz. Since 1976 she and Allen Teller have operated The Collected Image, a firm dealing American and European vintage and contemporary photographs to museums and collectors.