Vatroslav Mimica was born on June 25, 1923 in Omiš. He studied medicine in Zagreb. From 1942 he was an illegal member of SKOJ (socialist party of former Yugoslavia), and a year later joined the war. After the war he published literary and theatre critiques and was one of the editors of magazine Izvori. He started to work in the film industry in 1950 as a director of Jadran film. He made his debut with the film U oluji (1952). After that he made a comedy Jubilej gospodina Ikla (1955). Together with Vladimir Tadej, in
1957, he wrote scripts for many animated films made by Zagreb film. In that same year he made his first animated film Strašilo (Scarecrow). Then followed a number of animated films - Samac (The Loner, 1958), Happy End (1958), Inspektor se vratio kući (The Inspector Is Back!, 1959), Kod fotografa (At the Photographer's, 1959), Jaje (The Egg, 1959), Mala kronika (A Little Story, 1962), Tifusari (Typhoid Sufferers, 1963), that achieved great success all over the world (winning awards in many international film festivals) and he became one of the leading members of Zagrebačka škola animiranog filma. He was the screenwriter of the animated films Muha (Aleksandar Marks and Vladimir Jutriša, 1966), Krotitelj divljih konja (Nedjeljko Dragić, 1966) and Pozivnica (Branko Ranitović, 1970). In 1961 in Italy he directed a
spectacle film Solimano il conquistatore (1961), and afterwards in Zagreb he made successful short films Telefon (1962) and Ženidba gospodina Marcipana (1963). After directing the animated film Vatrogasci (The Fireman, 1971) he fully devoted himself to feature films. He made the film Prometej s otoka
Viševice (1965) which won him the Big Golden Arena and the Silver Arena for best director at the film festival in Pula. This film also won an award on the film festival in Moscow. Then followed the films Ponedjeljak ili utorak (Monday or Tuesday, 1966), Kaja, ubit ću te! (Kaya, I'll Kill You, 1967) and Događaj (An Event, 1969).
All these films are an important part of the creative rise of auteur film on the territory of former Yugoslavia in the 1960’s. Afterwards folowed Hranjenik (The Fed One, 1970), Makedonski dio pakla (1971), and Posljednji podvig diverzanta Oblaka (The Last Mission of Demolitions Man Cloud, 1978), in which his preoccupation with war themes, the fight for physical and spiritual freedom, Golgotha and the revolutionary ethics is evident. A separate group of his works is made up of films Seljačka buna 1573 – awarded with the Big Bronze Arena in Pula – and his last
feature film Banović Strahinja (The Falcon, 1981). He also directed for television.