online catalogue
Accompanying film programme

From Lives of Mothers

Kristina Dufková | Czech Republic | 2006 | 8 min

A humorous film about the joys and sorrows of motherhood animated by impressive and demanding paint-on-glass animation. We witness different situations that can be really surprising for new (and later also experienced) parents. Thanks to its excellent animation, the film has a dizzying tempo at times.

A Tear is Needed

Kristina Dufková | Czech Republic | 2008 | 17 min

What can a curious little girl expect when one days she falls asleep on a grave and wakes up in the realm of the dead? We can find the answer in the graduation film of Kristina Dufková who chose to animate this unusual adventure inspired by a Mexican legend using the paint-on-glass animation technique.

Homeland

Juan de Dios Marfil Atienza | Czech Republic, Spain | 2009 | 7 min

The film is a metaphorical story about the feeling of having a home and leaving it. One day, a girl finds a weak creature on her doorstep. The girl’s care and love is like a nourishing drink to the creature, which grows and grows… An impressive and moving film supported by emotionally charged music.

Swimming Pool

Alexandra Májová (Hettmerová) | Czech Republic | 2010 | 6 min

Swimming Pool is one of the most successful Czech student films of its time; it has been screened at a number of festivals. The story begins after sundown. The swimming pool is closed and empty until two loners decide to have a swim. The director, who still finds success at festivals with her animated films, has prepared an unexpected punch line.

The Mindbender

Dana Bubáková | Czech Republic | 2009 | 5 min

Non-narrative and abstract films are very rare among students. But Dana Bubáková’s The Mindbender is one of them – the director teeters on the border of a real story and an abstract visual expression of complex emotions. Her visual portrayal of phenomena that can’t be described by words is very captivating.

An Alien

Martin Máj | Czech Republic | 2013 | 7 min

The film follows the tradition of proven grotesque stories with moral lessons. Our hero sets out to a foreign country where he has trouble making himself understood and finding the way. But when he returns home, he does not seem to have learned a lesson. The director skilfully uses sounds instead of dialogues and deals with the graphic style of the background and movement in space in an interesting way.

Brumlik and Animuk

Jan Bohuslav | Czech Republic | 2011 | 11 min

Short animated film inspired by the life of the Greenland Inuit. The main characters are polar bear Brumlik and his best friend, a little girl called Animuk. Together they are trying to help a narwhal in trouble. The film is a fairy tale full of situational humour for children but it will entertain adults as well.

The New Species

Kateřina Karhánková | Czech Republic | 2013 | 7 min | EN titulky

A story of three friends who find a bone and to try to find out which animal it belonged to. The film builds upon a stylization for children and uses eye-catching colour combinations. With its attitude to the world of children, the film is reminiscent of the famous film by Jiří Brdečka Incorrectly Drawn Hen.

Fruits of Clouds

Kateřina Karhánková | Czech Republic | 2017 | 10 min

This poetic fairy tale is about crossing boundaries and having the courage to venture into the unknown. At a glade surrounded by a dark forest live creatures whose only food are seeds that turn into glowing fruits. The creatures are often hungry as the seeds fly to them only sporadically. But one of them gathers the courage to go into the forest.

Incorrectly Drawn Hen

Jiří Brdečka | Czechoslovakia | 1963 | 13 min

During her career, Libuše Čihařová animated a number of famous and successful films. One of the films, directed by the legendary Czech filmmaker Jiří Brdečka, celebrates the power of fantasy and defends modern art. The animators who brought the drawings to life had to cope with two artistic styles. Zdenek Seydl designed the hen and Jaroslav Malák other characters and the setting.

Guardian Angel

Libuše Čihařová | Czechoslovakia | 1981 | 9 min

The guardian angel of our hero does not have an easy job. However, the real fun starts when the man meets a woman. No matter how much the angels tries, he cannot save the man from the yoke of marriage. This unusual slapstick comedy is the debut of Libuše Čihařová who made it in collaboration with graphic artist Olga Čechová. It is her only film made mainly for grown-ups.

The Princess Who Saw Everything

Libuše Čihařová | Czechoslovakia | 1984 | 11 min | CS

This adaptation of a story by the Grimm brothers was again made in collaboration with Olga Čechová. The modern visual style is an excellent fit for the story, which – a bit unusually for a fairy-tale princess – emphasizes erudition and independence. The princess’ suitor eventually tricks her with the help of magic. 

Fairy Tale Planet

Libuše Čihařová | Czechoslovakia | 1986 | 9 min

The story of astronauts who land on an unknown planet has a particularly mysterious atmosphere. While exploring the planet, one of the astronauts goes into a strange castle and we find out what popular fairy tale the director combined with sci-fi. The film’s disturbing soundtrack was made by Jan Klusák and its artistic style was created by three various graphic artists.

About Malenka

Libuše Čihařová | Czechoslovakia | 1988 | 13 min | CS

In 1988, the director once again collaborated with graphic artist Jitka Valterová and the resulting film is an extraordinary adaptation of one of Andersen’s fairy tales. The children may find the story accompanied by dramatic music a bit dark, but the overall style the authors used to visualize the fantastic story is almost reminiscent of the poetics of Japanese anime in its extraordinariness.

The Listener

Chris Landreth | United States | 1992 | 2 min | EN

The film was created after Chris Landreth first saw the possibilities of computer animation in the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). It stars a character portrayed by a part of its head with expressive eyes and moving on three legs. The director calls it: “My first CG animated short film. A tiny fable of information overload and self-discovery.”

the end

Chris Landreth | United States | 1995 | 6 min | EN

An animator finds himself trying to explain his (lack of) artistic vision to his creations, who simply aren’t impressed. “the end is a short film I did while I was with Alias/Wavefront (now Autodesk). I did this to test out new facial animation software AW was developing at the time, but it turned into much more than that." the end was nominated for an Oscar the following year, and a smattering of other awards around the world.

Bingo

Chris Landreth | Canada | 1998 | 6 min | EN

This disturbing film is set in a circus ring and boasts excellent texture processing and remarkable character stylization. “This film I directed while I was working with a group of people to create an animation software package called Maya. I did this film in an attempt to dispel my lifelong fear of clowns. It didn’t work.”

Ryan

Chris Landreth | Canada | 2004 | 14 min | EN

This anidoc is based on the life of Ryan Larkin, a Canadian animator who produced some of the most influential animated films of his time. Ryan is living every artist’s worst nightmare – succumbing to addiction, panhandling on the streets to make ends meet. Through computer-generated characters, Landreth interviews his friend to shed light on his downward spiral.

The Spine

Chris Landreth | Canada | 2009 | 11 min | EN

A therapeutic group is full of strange cases, but the film focuses mainly on a relationship between a man and a woman trapped in a spiral of mutual destruction after 26 years of marriage. The Spine continues Landreth’s pursuit of a twisted, beautiful and highly original visual aesthetic, using digital imagery to create characters whose physical appearances are metaphors for their unique souls.

Subconscious Password

Chris Landreth | Canada | 2013 | 11 min | EN

Here, the author uses a common social gaffe—forgetting somebody’s name—as the starting point for a mind-bending romp through the unconscious. Inspired by the classic TV game show Password, the film features a wealth of animated celebrity guests who try to prompt our beleaguered protagonist to remember his old pal’s name. Finally, he realizes he must surrender to his predicament and jump head-first into his subconscious to find the answer.

Be Cool and Don’t Be an Asshole

Chris Landreth | Canada | 2016 | 1 min

For a campaign by the National Film Board of Canada called Naked Island, Chris Landreth made a short video in which he takes selfies in front of various bizarre places all over the world. In this way, he has taken an unapologetic poke at the self-consumed selfie culture.

Il(s) tourne(nt) en rond

Boris Labbé | France | 2010 | 3 min

Characters on a painting by the Flemish artist Pieter Brueghel the Younger were replaced by clones of the director himself. They bring the painting alive by frolicking around and each viewer can choose to follow one of dozens of clones who live the lives of the original characters in endless animated loops.

Cinétique

Boris Labbé | France | 2011 | 5 min

This play with the end and beginning of a structure of organic shapes is accompanied by equally organic sounds, electronics and voices. It exposes the principles of optics, disrupts them and refers to film’s ancient history. Gradual immersion into an endless vortex evokes fear and fascination and reminds us of the conflict of life and death.

Kyrielle

Boris Labbé | France | 2011 | 10 min

The title comes from a French play on words when one word follows another. Myriad aquarelle characters gradually cover the whole screen and their cyclical mini-stories grow into an abstract kaleidoscopic structure full of colour. Labbé also uses the principle of growth and disappearance with regards to the soundtrack.

Caverne

Boris Labbé | France | 2011 | 7 min

Another one of Labbé’s hypnotic films is built around an expressive visual and musical rhythm. It combines jungle-like sounds with projections on the wall of a depressing space. By connecting the projections resembling animal x-rays, kaleidoscopic patterns are created and hint at new animal species.

Rhizome

Boris Labbé | France | 2015 | 11 min

Everything is connected in the universe, from the smallest things to the biggest. In this colourfully economical film, Boris Labbé shows how seemingly independent things exist in interaction by depicting their movement and constant metamorphoses in a detailed 2D animation of Indian ink and watercolours on paper.

Any Road

Boris Labbé | France | 2016 | 11 min | EN

This captivating audiovisual trip begins with an innocent game of Pong. To the sounds of Daniel Ghisi’s music, we set out on an inconstant ride that is unreliable for the viewers. This fall through the subconscious is characterized by a quote from Carroll’s Alice: “…So long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.

Orogenesis

Boris Labbé | Spain, France | 2016 | 8 min

The authors take us into a black-and-white world of a realistic computer simulation. We can make out the shapes of mountain ranges and the details of the valleys while hearing choral music. But hand-in-hand with the distortion of the soundtrack come slight transformations of the known world. An abstract ecstasy or a speculation on how mountains were formed.

Natural Plastic

Faiyaz Jafri | United States | 2010 | 2 min

The slightly disturbing film Natural Plastic is a metaphor for the delicate balance between man and nature. We watch a face slowly but surely overgrown with plants. The director, who also composed the film’s soundtrack, perfectly connects disgustingly detailed images with his own parody on kitsch.

Hello Bambi

Faiyaz Jafri | United States | 2011 | 7 min

This film, which in its time fascinated audiences at dozens of festivals, portrays Snow White’s last dream that she has during her way to the emergency room. The director uses CGI animation in his own way and is equally original content-wise. The girl’s surrealist dream is swarming with altered and deformed Walt Disney characters.

Baby, I Love You

Faiyaz Jafri | United States | 2013 | 3 min | EN

In this short but all the more peculiar film, the director – as is his habit – mixed morbid images with a parody on kitsch. He chose a very distinctive visual style using shiny smooth surfaces reflecting their surroundings. We watch a girl confronted with her dark side.

Disconnector

Faiyaz Jafri | United States, Hong Kong SAR China | 2014 | 7 min | EN | EN titulky

This film depicts a bored couple who come across a discotheque simulator that reignites their relationship and gives them real pleasure. But this visual spectacle has a different, darker message. It reflects the relationships of Hong Kong couples whose communication isn’t personal or physical, but virtual.

This Ain't Disneyland

Faiyaz Jafri | Hong Kong SAR China | 2015 | 7 min

Jafri’s personal statement on the 9/11 attacks puts his favourite Bambi fawns into the context of this tragedy…He explains his intention with the following words: “This film is not about the big conspiracies, terrorism, fundamentalism, hate or love. This film is about how close, good and bad, wrong and right, innocence and perversion can be. This is my film about my twin towers and how I miss them.”

Sway

Faiyaz Jafri | Hong Kong SAR China | 2016 | 9 min

Sway is a non-narrative film celebrating human hair and musical immersion. This time, Jafri turned his attention away from his favourite smooth and shiny surfaces and portrayed dancing bodies covered with hair from head to toe. The dance of these strange fuzzballs transforms into abstract images of various colours.

Miller Fisher

Faiyaz Jafri | Hong Kong SAR China | 2016 | 9 min

Miller Fisher amalgamates the distorted visual, physical and existential experience of an autoimmune disorder by the same name, with the aesthetics and vernacular of the animated GIF. We find ourselves in an artistically specific 3D world known from the author’s previous works as “hyper-unrealism.”

Amoricania

Faiyaz Jafri | United States | 2017 | 6 min

Amoricania is a provocative depiction of America in which the director connects various neo-archetypes into post-modern and often abstract collages. Jafri describes his colourful breakneck ride as “hyperreality rendered in hyper-unrealism.”

Car Fairy Tales: Vincent

Libor Pixa | Czech Republic | 2011 | 10 min

The 2011 feature film Car Fairy Tales is based on a book of the same name by Jiří Marek. It includes four tales and each of them is made using a different technique. The one directed by Libor Pixa is set in a not-too-distant future and uses 3D computer animation.

Graffitiger

Libor Pixa | Czech Republic | 2010 | 10 min

A story of a lonely illustrated graffiti-tiger who lives on walls and facades of Prague houses. The city full of sprayed dirty streets and corners is a wild jungle where the tiger looks for a way to find his lost love. The film is processed by a combination of 2D animation and live action footage with actors.

Dreadful Accidents

Libor Pixa | Czech Republic | 2007 | 8 min

Libor Pixa made Dreadful Accidents during his studies at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague in collaboration with the successful screenwriter and director Jan Prušinovský. The film’s main protagonist inadvertently seals his own fate and it seems that it will be his last morning.

Psi-CHO

Libor Pixa | Czech Republic | 2005 | 11 min

In his student film, Libor Pixa combines 2D and 3D animation. He created a slapstick comedy in which a three-dimensional character encounters a two-dimensional dog printed on paper. One can’t help but wonder at what they do to each other. The director also points out the advantages and disadvantages of both techniques.

Where It All Began

Joris Oprins, Marieke Blaauw, Job Roggeveen | Netherlands | 2017 | 3 min | NL

This spot, which animation studio Job, Joris & Marieke prepared for its anniversary, will briefly but illustratively and playfully guide you through the ten years of history this Dutch trio. You will see previews from their known and less-known films and also the development of their style and technology over time.

How Snjezhi Tjelovek found his ancestors

Joris Oprins | Netherlands | 2002 | 3 min | EN

How Snjezhi Tjelovek Found His Ancestors was made as Joris’s graduate film at the Design Academy Eindhoven. It humorously and ironically depicts a Russian clerk who has trouble dealing with the fact that he is an orphan even when he’s older. Will he eventually find his family?

Happy Camper: Born with a Bothered Mind

Joris Oprins, Marieke Blaauw, Job Roggeveen | Netherlands | 2011 | 4 min | EN

In this music video Manfred the Yeti goes on a camping trip. Although everything goes wrong Manfred stays a happy camper! Born with a Bothered Mind was the single on the first album of Happy Camper, Job’s music project. Animated Manfred became the main character in the campaign around the album and the tour.

Happy?

Marieke Blaauw, Joris Oprins, Job Roggeveen | Netherlands | 2011 | 3 min | NL

This short and humorous interview with the fictitious animated frontman of Happy Camper is made in a documentary style. In total 11 singers contributed to the album and as it was impossible to choose the frontman, the album is presented by this likeable fuzzball created by Job, Joris & Marieke.

Gers Pardoel: I’ll Take You Along

Marieke Blaauw, Joris Oprins, Job Roggeveen | Netherlands | 2010 | 4 min | NL

This music video with more than 20 million views on YouTube is made in the visual style known from later – and also very successful – films by Job, Joris & Marieke. A boy takes his girlfriend on a trip round the world during which both of them grow up. The originally stylized characters have to deal with a series of unexpected events.

Fit: Been Too Long

Marieke Blaauw, Joris Oprins, Job Roggeveen | Netherlands | 2012 | 4 min | NL

This black-and-white music video depicts the relationship between two anthropomorphised creatures. Trapped in a relationship that's been going on far too long, these big-toothed wild creatures fight in their household and outside of it. The authors chose a non-traditional way of portraying the fight and made everything in slow motion.

Mute

Marieke Blaauw, Joris Oprins, Job Roggeveen | Netherlands | 2013 | 4 min

In a land inhabited by mouth-less people, an accident leads to a series of interesting situations. When people realise how much they are missing they decide to get mouths by any means possible. The film Mute is a sequence of humorous gags and surprising events.

This Is How Mute Was Made

Marieke Blaauw, Joris Oprins, Job Roggeveen | Netherlands | 2013 | 2 min | EN

This short making-of takes the viewers behind the scenes of this award-winning film. In a nutshell, it presents its makers and the work on the film itself: from drawings and sketches to real inspirations of individual characters through CGI animation to the soundtrack.

Happy Camper: The Daily Drumbeat

Marieke Blaauw, Joris Oprins, Job Roggeveen | Netherlands | 2014 | 3 min | EN

This music video for the title song from the second album of Happy Camper – Job’s music project with different singers and their own songs – depicts a strange situation: odd-looking striped drummers try to catch their instruments on the rooftops of a big city. It seems, though, that these innocent creatures lag behind.

A Single Life

Marieke Blaauw, Joris Oprins, Job Roggeveen | Netherlands | 2014 | 3 min

A young woman receives a mysterious package and her life gets out of hand. The package contains a vinyl record with one absolutely essential single. Each of the grooves represents a certain period of her life and she can freely travel through them. But it comes with a risk…

Bon Voyage

Marieke Blaauw, Joris Oprins, Job Roggeveen | Netherlands | 2014 | 3 min | EN

At the start of the Tour the France in Utrecht a boy tries to reach his girlfriend. This film was made for the City of Utrecht to promote the Grand Depart of the Tour de France in Utrecht in 2015. The film is accompanied by the title song Bon Voyage by singer-songwriter Blaudzun. Filmmakers had a great time working on this short because Utrecht is their hometown.

Fedde Le Grand and Jewelz & Sparks: Robotic

Marieke Blaauw, Joris Oprins, Job Roggeveen | Netherlands | 2015 | 5 min

In this rhythmical music video, we see small parts gradually forming something bigger. While the parts align and connect, they are dancing rhythmically. And what if what is eventually created leaves the confined space and wanders through city streets?

(Otto)

Marieke Blaauw, Joris Oprins, Job Roggeveen | Netherlands | 2015 | 9 min

This moving and slightly sad film tells the story of a married couple. The woman longs for a baby she cannot have and her fantasy forces her to “adopt” an imaginary friend of an unknown girl from a café. While she’s busy with imaginary motherhood, the gap between her and her husband widens. But everything changes when the girl comes looking for her imaginary friend.

Heads Together

Joris Oprins, Marieke Blaauw, Job Roggeveen | Netherlands | 2016 | 21 min | NL

This, the longest film to date from Job, Joris & Marieke, is also their only one primarily for children. A surreal story about three friends who exchange heads by accident and are forced to adapt to each other’s life. This leads to funny but also enriching situations. Will they be able to keep it secret? And will they ever get their own heads back?

Passing By

Marieke Blaauw, Joris Oprins, Job Roggeveen | Netherlands | 2018 | 4 min

Passing By shows the history of the Damrak Amsterdam as seen from the shop window of department store De Bijenkorf. This film has been made as part of the artist in residency ‘Room on the Roof’ by De Bijenkorf. The film can been seen in the shop window of De Bijenkorf in Amsterdam from22 January 2018.

April Fool’s Day

Jana Merglová | Czechoslovakia | 1964 | 3 min

As the film’s title suggests, Jana Merglová made a playful film demonstrating the joy of animation – animating the inanimate, this time ordinary objects seen or rather ignored every day. Objects of various colours, shapes and materials suddenly acquire new characters.

The Illustrated Woman

Pavla Řezníčková | Czechoslovakia | 1969 | 6 min | CS

This film, based on a story of the same name by Ray Bradbury about a peculiar tattooed woman, is formally a series of artistically rich static images brought to life by camera and editing and accompanied by captivating narration by Miroslav Macháček and flute played by Jiří Stivín.

The Hen

Lucie Dvořáková | Czechoslovakia | 1984 | 4 min | CS

Many philosophers are trying to answer the question of what came first. But in her film based on Miloš Macourek’s script, Lucie Dvořáková wants to know what’s more important. First, she shows the fictitious history of the egg in art, only to come to a surprising and humorous conclusion in the end.

Yeti

Petra Fundová | Czechoslovakia | 1985 | 6 min | CS

Vlastimil Brodský narrates Alois Mikulka’s story about a Yeti, sceptical scientists and what happens when one takes too many pills. Petra Fundová took advantage of the story’s comical potential and concentrated mainly on scenes when the Yeti meets the human world.

About a Fisherman That Never Caught Anything

Nina Čampulková | Czechoslovakia | 1984 | 8 min

Nina Čampulková also chose a story by Alois Mikulka. This poetic story about a fisherman who goes fishing, not to catch anything but rather to dream, proved right for her naïve artistic exercise in which she naturally connected the setting of a modern city with fantastic landscapes from the fisherman’s dreams.

How the Bloke Got All the Work Mixed Up

Lenka Naibauerová | Czechoslovakia | 1988 | 6 min | CS

Thanks to its excellent folklore visual style, this music video for a folklore song about a man who one day decides to show everyone that he can do any job as well as his wife, looks like a whimsical folk comedy, but it is also a topical parallel on gender stereotypes.

Hippo Mummy Is a Daddy

Šarlota Zahrádková | Czechoslovakia | 1988 | 7 min | CS

Šarlota Zahrádková’s story can be seen as an innocent tale about children’s game of mummy and daddy. But the seemingly cute hippo story hides a clever satire on stereotype gender role and division of work in many traditional families.

On the Road

Tereza Kučerová | Czechoslovakia | 1991 | 7 min

Tereza Kučerová’s metaphorical film is the second of her three animated shorts. The themes that loosely accompany her work are mainly interpersonal relationships but also self-reflection, growth and one’s personal journey – a central symbol of this film.

Tremble

Kateřina Nováková | Czechoslovakia | 1972 | 4 min

This original graduation film is based on a poetic story by Martin Wernisch, son of the poet Ivan Wernisch. Narrated by actor Jiří Adamíra, the film recounts a bizarre series of encounters between bandits and various inhabitants of the forest. “And they kept on going…and thought it all very funny.”

Versus

Miroslava Humplíková | Czechoslovakia | 1992 | 8 min

Miroslava Humplíková’s film is unique not only thanks to her collaboration with the renowned Czech graphic artist Kája Saudek who imprinted his unique comic book style on the film, but also thanks to its original narrative which deals with gender stereotypes in a very modern and humorous way, considering the era when the film was made.

White Dreams

Zdeněk Novák, Blanka Šperková | Czechoslovakia | 1987 | 9 min

In her poetic film, Blanka Šperková utilized not only Chantal Poullain’s acting, but also hand-made artistic objects created from wires. The resulting film is an original parable of the complexity of the human mind and the meaning of invisible things that surround us.

The Significant Personalities of Our Lives

Czechoslovakia | 1928 | 3 min | SILENT

This public education film was made by an unknown patriotic author. Ten years after the foundation of independent Czechoslovakia, we still fell strong civic admiration toward the representatives of the era. Their animated portraits are fittingly transformed – for instance the map of Czechoslovakia transforms to Masaryk’s face. The film also uses cutout animation.

Ideas in Search of Light

Karel Dodal, Irena Dodalová | Czechoslovakia | 1938 | 10 min

This black-and-white abstract film warning us against impending world-scale catastrophe uses reflections and shadows. It is the last film made by the Dodals together, who were driven apart by Nazism. The film was never screened in Czech cinemas, but it was screened at the Venice festival.

The Springer and SS-Men

Jiří Trnka | Czechoslovakia | 1946 | 14 min

This classical slapstick comedy is studio Bratři v triku settling the accounts with the hated occupants. One of our few superheroes fearlessly faces the Nazis while hopping on springs. The film is full of visual humour and inventive ideas foreshadowing the studio’s bright future.

A Song about a Harmonica

Jiří Brdečka | Czechoslovakia | 1974 | 6 min

In our chronological programme, this film should be screened later, but its theme places it right here: the last day of the liberation of Prague during which a Soviet soldier is killed by a German bullet. The film was made to commemorate the occasion – it is the only one that Jiří Brdečka was ever forced to do. Nowadays it is a testimony to two kinds of constraint.

Temporary Job

Eduard Hofman, Zdeněk Miler | Czechoslovakia | 1950 | 13 min

This film phenomenon is probably the best example of the period enthusiasm of eager communists (not only in animation). Miler’s elaborate visual style naturally mixes social realism with fairy-tales. And even though it literally visualises the saying “no bees no honey, no work no money”, it remains captivating to this day.

The Eye

Juraj Bindzár | Czechoslovakia | 1968 | 6 min

This experimental film dealing with the tragedy of human malice and dissatisfied society was unfortunately finished in 1968. It is the only Slovak animated film to end up banned and also the first and last film made by director, poet and singer Juraj Bindzár.

The Song

Jaroslava Havettová | Czechoslovakia | 1969 | 5 min | CS

The first Slovak music video made for a song by Waldemar Matuška and Helena Vondráčková was made by Czechoslovak duo Havettová and Popovič. The authors drew inspiration from George Dunning’s famous Yellow Submarine.

Chess

Viktor Kubal | Czechoslovakia | 1974 | 5 min

This animated slapstick is set on a chessboard. Kubal’s film is an allegory on society without freedom in which our every step is governed by strict rules and “kings and queens” who prevent us from disobeying the clear rules of the game.

The Queues

Helena Slavíková-Rabarová | Czechoslovakia | 1980 | 7 min

Za socializmu sa čakalo všade a na všetko. Pár vynaliezavých jednotlivcov si však vždy našlo kratšiu cestu. Svojim kritickým postojom k „ekonomike nedostatku“ sa tento film výrazne líši od zvyšku tvorby Heleny Rabarovej-Slavíkovej, ktorá sa primárne venovala detskej tvorbe a je známa najmä svojim cyklom folklórnych veršovačiek pre deti Maľovanky – spievanky.

The Last Stone

Július Hučko, Jaroslava Havettová | Czechoslovakia | 1982 | 5 min

How does an artist deal with official requests to constantly change his work? This film presents a conflict between a politically-unburdened creative intention and a political burden imposed on art which is eventually revealed to be a very pragmatic and selfish intention.

The Idol

Viktor Kubal | Czechoslovakia | 1989 | 5 min

In his film The Idol, Viktor Kubal copes with the socialist regime very originally and directly. This slapstick comedy about an oppressive regime with a happy ending depicts an obedient citizen who bows to well-known busts for so long until his patience runs out.

The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia

Jan Švankmajer | Czechoslovakia, Germany, United Kingdom | 1990 | 10 min | CS

Švankmajer’s 10-minute-long brilliant film goodbye to the one-party state era depicts the mechanics of power and the atmosphere and the attitudes of people trapped in the system. After years of censorship, Švankmajer let loose his stream of ideas. His film is a hard beating of the regime big shots, but he knows that overthrowing them is not enough.

No Comment(s)

Pavel Koutský | Czech Republic | 1994 | 3 min

During the 1990s, Pavel Koutský made short reflections for Czech Television in which he used his unique style to comment on topical issues and cases. He managed to portray a complex problem within a few seconds and add a humorous timeless punch line to a television blackout.

1st Day & Next Minute

Sara Koppel | Denmark | 2017 | 3 min

The Joys Of Fatherhood

Or Kantor | Israel | 2018 | 2 min | EN

Simbiosis Carnal

Rocio Alvarez | Belgium | 2017 | 10 min

The Bed

Günther Lydia | Germany | 2017 | 6 min | DE

Food For Fraught

Reid McManus | Australia | 2017 | 3 min | EN

Intimity

Elodie Dermange | Switzerland | 2017 | 5 min | EN

Foglä

Owley Samter | Switzerland | 2017 | 4 min

(OO)

Seo-ro OH | South Korea | 2017 | 7 min

Oh&Yeah

Wenyu Li | China | 2017 | 3 min | ZH

Booth

Ottomar Sukko | Estonia | 2017 | 5 min

Death of a Fruit Fly

Lukas Berg | Germany | 2017 | 5 min | IT

Bond

Judit Wunder | Hungary | 2016 | 10 min

Contrast

Barbora Bárková | Slovakia | 2017 | 4 min

mARRY jESUS gALAXY

Asja Trost, Sandra Jovanovska, Ines Sambas, Mery Gobec | Slovenia | 2017 | 4 min

Process

Lucija Bužančić | Croatia | 2017 | 5 min | HR

"The Stranger" in My Head

Petra Balekić | Croatia | 2017 | 5 min | HR

The film is a kind of reconstruction of the book The Stranger written by Albert Camus. I've read that book 12 years ago. I remember mostly the influence the book left on me and the atmosphere it created, but when it comes to characters and action in the book there are left only fragments. So I tried to put those fragments into some context in this short animation.

Tutti

Marek Jasaň | Slovakia | 2016 | 1 min

WireLess

Szandra Pataki | Hungary | 2016 | 7 min

At the cinema

Fredrik Andersson | Sweden | 2017 | 1 min | DE

Human

Jungho Bang | South Korea | 2017 | 6 min

Hidden

Anisa Binte Abdul Latiff, Dhabitah Kamarudin, Jeth Heng, Benedict Lo | Singapore | 2017 | 4 min

Incarnation

Barbara Rupik | Poland | 2017 | 5 min | PL

NSFWhale

Nathan Campbell, Alec Cummings | United States | 2017 | 2 min

Cuckoo

Aline Höchli | Switzerland | 2017 | 4 min | GSW

Death Van

Michael Enzbrunner | Canada | 2017 | 7 min

Catican

Mery Gobec, Asja Trost, Ines Sambas | Slovenia | 2017 | 3 min | EN

Omen

Zheng Jie Ng | Singapore | 2017 | 3 min

Fish Shop

Maria Kulpa | Poland | 2017 | 3 min | PL

TV Panorama: Gruffalo

různí / various | United Kingdom, Germany | 54 min | CS | 3+

Two stories based on popular children’s books by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler take us to a deep forest where a squirrel mom tells the stories to her restless children. In the first one we meet a mouse looking for a hazelnut. On its quest to find the nut, it will have to prove considerable courage when confronted by a fox, an owl and a snake. The mouse tricks and scares the predators with a story about the Gruffalo, a scary monster, whom it is supposed to meet in the forest. But what a surprise it is when the mouse indeed meets the Gruffalo face to face! The Gruffallo’s daughter cannot sleep and even though her father forbade it, she sets out into the snowy wilderness to find a fearsome mouse her father was telling her about. On her way, she also meets the locals. But the nightmarish mouse is nowhere to be found. Or does it look different than in her father’s story? The Czech version of this rhymed story is narrated by Lucie Kušnírová, Valerie Zawadská and Libor Terš.

The Gruffalo
Directed by Jakob Schuh, Max Lang, UK/GER, 2009, 27 min

The Gruffalo’s Child
Directed by Johannes Weiland, Uwe Heidschötter, UK/GER, 2011, 27 min

Emil the Doughnut

Blanka Šperková | 56 min | SK | 6+

My Life as a Zucchini

Claude Barras | Switzerland, France | 2016 | 66 min | 6+

TV Panorama: Wakfu

France | 2008 | 69 min | CS

The world of orphan Yugo is full of a mysterious energy called
wakfu. Yugo’s origin is full of secrets too. An enigmatic dragon
elder has left him in the hands of good-hearted Alibert and said
that when Yugo discovers his powers, he will go and look for
his roots. And such time has come. But when your patron is a
dragon, you can be sure that your journey is not going to be a
bed of roses. But luckily, Yugo is not alone. He finds friends in the
old bounty hunter Ruel Stroud, curious Princess Amalia Sheran
Sharm, her protector Evangelyna and the boastful Sir Percedal
of Sadlygrove. Their nemesis is the twisted time-lord Nox who
disturbs the wakfu energy balance.
The Ankama Animation studio based their series on an MMORPG
game of the same name, but the characters and the story are of
their own design. The story inventively draws inspiration from
Japanese anime, the western fantasy tradition and the eastern
duality of positive and negative energy and contains a strong
environmental message.

The Child from the Mist
Vampyro
Ruel‘s Bag
Created by Tot (Anthony Roux)
Directed by Tot, Oliver Güss Thulliez, Fafah Togora, FR, 2008, 23 min

Kado: Beyond Information

Masaki Watanabe | Japan | 2017 | 120 min | JA

This sci-fi film full of suspense and action sequences is so captivating that the viewers won’t take their eyes off the screen for two hours. The story will immediately draw everyone in. It begins with a huge mysterious cube descending from the sky at the very moment when a plane is taking off from Haneda airport. The unknown cube keeps on expanding and absorbs the plane with 252 passengers on board. Total chaos and panic breaks out. But suddenly a mysterious being called Yaha-kui zaShunina appears from the cube and contacts human beings. Shindo, negotiator from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is hired by KADO and is appointed as the intermediary. Director Masaki Watanabe gained experience from directing film serials; in 2006 he made Bartender and a few years later the series Strongest Galaxy Ultimate Zero Battle Spirits (2013-14). The ambitious project KADO was first created as a 12-episode series (KADO:Right Answer). New scenes were made for the feature film Beyond Information and the ending has been altered.

Inside Out

Ronnie Del Carmen, Pete Docter | United States | 2015 | 102 min

The Smallest Elephant in the World

Libor Pixa | Czech Republic | 72 min | CS | 3+

Nils and the Wild Geese

Libuše Čihařová | Czech Republic | 1998 | 63 min | CS | 3+

This animated series about a boy who is travelling with a flock of wild geese and learns to understand nature, people and himself, is based on The Wonderful Adventures of Nils Holgersson by the Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf. The book is popular among children from all over the world and there have been several adaptations made (predominantly live-action). Experienced animator and director Libuše Čihařová asked graphic designer Jitka Valtrová to collaborate on this series. She chose the demanding and seldom-used technique of aquarelle painting to animate the background and thus gave the series a unique atmosphere full of unusual colour combinations and light effects. Composer Emil Viklický drew inspiration from this atmosphere and composed a captivating score which is supplemented by narration by Pavel Soukup.

Episodes: 7 x 9 min

Tomte (Goblin)

Fox

Rats

Swans

Eagle

Wolves

Return

Little Red Riding Hood and the Seven Dwarfs

58 min | CS | 6+

Harvie and the Magic Museum

Martin Kotík, Inna Evlannikova | Czech Republic | 2017 | 86 min | CS

Harvie is a smart but slightly too lively boy with one ambition, to finish the last level of his computer game. Once in the Gamers Hall of Fame, his absent-minded father, Mr. Spejbl, would finally be proud of him. But finishing the game turns out to be only the start of a real adventure that takes Harvie, his dog Jerry, and his friend Monica deep into the forgotten realms of the city’s old puppet museum. And as Harvie accidentally activates a legendary magic disc, he brings the museum and all its puppets to life along with the ancient and monstrous puppet master!
For executive producer and director Martin Kotík along with graphic designer Martin Zahradník, the production of this animated family film took more than seven years. The production team consisted of top screenwriters, animators and special effects artists from all over Europe. The co-creator of the story and a member of the directing team was Jesper Møller, who directed for example Asterix and the Vikings. The 3D animated film was made using state-of-the-art technological methods, but it didn’t lose the poetics and humour based on the endless teasing between Harvie and his dad Spejbl.

Dimensions of 3D Animation: Milestones

různí / various | 78 min

Pinpointing certain films as milestones is always very tricky. In
the case of 3D computer animation with more than 30 years
of history and a very rich palette of used approaches, it is even
more so. We logically focused on its first successes that brought
fame to 3D animation and to a certain extent defined its present
form. We are talking not only about the first films made by Pixar,
but also about more avant-garde examples such as The Little Death
by Symbolics Graphics or the cult beginnings of the famous
squirrel by Blue Sky Studios.
The selection also focuses on original authorial films, well-
-known as well as less-known. Films that at their time celebrated
incredible success on the international festival scene. And films
whose authors’ approach to the technique strongly influenced
its perception by the sceptical artistic community. With regards
to visual effects, we included Dix by The Mill and the legendary
Oscar-winning Logorama told entirely through the use of more
than 2,500 logos. We naturally can’t forget Rosto, one of 3D CGI’s
tireless visionaries (much like our jury member Chris Landreth
who will present his complete retrospective at this year’s Anifilm)
and David O’Reilly whose films (and games) are also included
in this year’s programme. We also included the famous British
film Morning Stroll by AKA and the disturbing film I, Pet Goat II by
Canadian studio Helifant.

The Little Death
Directed by Matt Elson, USA, 1984, 2 min

Luxo Jr.
Directed by John Lasseter, USA, 1986, 2 min

Geri’s Game
Directed by Jan Pinkava, USA, 1997, 5 min

Dix
Directed by Jules Janaud, Fabrice Le Nezet,
Francois Roisin – aka Bif, FR, 2008, 7 min

Logorama
Directed by François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy,
Ludovic Houplain, FR, 2009, 16 min

Splintertime
Directed by Rosto, FR, NL, BEL, 2014, 10 min

Morning Stroll
Directed by Grant Orchard, UK, 2011, 7 min

I, Pet Goat II
Directed by Louis Lefebvre, CA, 2012, 8 min

Gone Nutty
Directed by Carlos Saldanha, USA, 2002, 4 min

The External World
Directed by David O’Reilly, DE, IR, 2011, 17 min

TV Panorama: Revolting Rhymes

Jakob Schuh, Jan Lachauer | United Kingdom | 58 min | 6+

Perhaps the stories of the Snow White and Little Red Riding Hood ended up differently. Perhaps there wasn’t only one wolf. And perhaps they all knew each other. In the case of Revolting Rhymes, this is all true. We find both our heroines in a big city. Given the fact that the films are based on books by Roald Dahl (illustrated by Quentin Blake), we can be sure that the stories will contain some lessons to learn, quirky humour and a dose of eeriness that can be found in the original stories. This modern adaptation deepens the relationships of the characters and the rhymed narrative helps to keep the story of the friendship between the two aforementioned fairy-tale heroines playful and captivating. In the second part, they are joined by Jack and the beanstalk and their neighbour Cinderella. Little Red Riding Hood’s children are told their stories by none other than the Wolf itself dressed as a babysitter. How will their stories end? And will the children survive the Wolf’s bedtime stories? Revolting Rhymes Part One earned the Magic Light Pictures studio an Oscar nomination like The Gruffalo and Room on the Broom. The Czech version is narrated by Andrea Elsnerová and Klára Šumanová. 
Revolting Rhymes Part One
Directed by Jan Lachauer, Jakob Schuh, UK, 2016, 29 min

Revolting Rhymes Part Two
Directed by Jan Lachauer, Jakob Schuh, UK, 2016, 29 min

Dimensions of 3D animation: Game and Other Influences

různí / various | 78 min

In this programme block we focus on films that can’t deny
various non-film influences. Their authors often drew inspiration
from the aesthetics and narration of computer games. And not
only thanks to the fact that they sometimes develop them – like
for instance David O’Reilly. His game and film Everything competes
both at film and game festivals. Computer games are a natural
source of inspiration because – like the explored technique –
they are created inside a computing machine. The retro aesthetic
of the first computer games then forms a world for itself in
pop-culture (Pixels). The world of visual effects is a huge market
for 3D animation. The principle of combination with the real
world is an attraction that – it seems – will not leave mainstream
or independent production any time soon. We can see it in Robot
and Scarecrow. Visualisation of science experiments, footage from
digital microscopes and laboratory simulations (Macrostructure)
are also very popular. Like all other media, 3D animation also has
other sources of inspiration. And so we can for instance admire the
3D version of the comic book The Absence of Eddy Table. Join us in
our search for other influences.

Dilemma
Directed by John Halas, UK, 1981, 11 min

Robot and Scarecrow
Directed by Kibwe Tavares, UK, 2017, 15 min

Rainbow Narcosis
Directed by Jonathan Monaghan, USA 2013, 8 min

Everything
Directed by David O’Reilly, USA, IR, 2017, 11 min

Between Bears
Directed by Eran Hilleli, IZR, 2010, 5 min

Macrostructure
Directed by Eric Schockmel, UK, 2014, 5 min

Pixels
Directed by Patrick Jean, FR, 2009, 3 min

The Absence of Eddy Table
Directed by Rune Spaans, NOR, 2016, 12 min

Let’s Play Nomad X
Directed by Kristian Andrews, UK, 2013, 3 min

Google Spotlight Stories: Son of Jaguar
Directed by Jorge Gutiérrez, USA, 2017, 11 min

La Luna
Directed by Enrico Casarosa, USA, 2011, 7 min

TV panorama: Adult Swim presents I

různí / various | United States | 68 min

The evening programme block Adult Swim was born in 2001
and since then has become a leading overseas producer of top
original animated series. As the name suggests, its production
officially targets adult audiences and unofficially party animals and stoners who turn the programme on when they get
home late at night. Despite the over-abundance of hard-boiled
humour, formal eccentricity and surreal style, Adult Swim to
certain extent stays true to its roots on the children’s channel
Cartoon Network. In the midst of a number of its titles, we
can see a reflection of absurd schemes and phantasmagorical
premises of production for children – predominantly shows from
the 80s which today’s Adult Swim authors grew up watching.
Their currently most popular hit series Rick and Morty presents
a cynical take on Back to the Future. The Claymation series Moral
Orel takes naïve exemplary good guy live-action series and turns
them into a self-indulgent extreme. Mike Tyson Mysteries and
Black Dynamite – The Animated Series use a curved mirror to mix
the psychedelic heritage of the mystery team series Scooby-Doo
with the phenomenon of animated series where real celebrities
and fictitious icons of adult pop-culture tried to morally lecture
children such as Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos and Rambo: The
Force of Freedom.

Rango

Gore Verbinski | United States | 2011 | 103 min

Hermína Týrlová

Pavel Jirásek | Czech Republic | 2017 | 52 min | CS

The film recounts the story of the first lady of Czech animation who devoted her entire life to work for children. The charm of her films that appealed to multiple generations lay in searching for new ways and her ability to instil film poetics into the most ordinary things.
This film story depicts the inner development of Týrlová’s animation poetics with emphasis on aesthetic and technological problems of a number of experiments she conducted as the first in the world. For her work, she herself chose stories, wrote scripts and often also made props. She used a number of different materials – from wood through plastic, wool, stone, play dough and textiles to bakery products from Vizovice. It was her animation particularity close to the children’s world and supported by reconstruction scenes that became the main storyline of the films. Her films won awards at prestigious international film festivals in Venice, Cannes, Locarno, Teheran, Brussels and Delhi. In 1947, she won the Gran Prix of the IFF Brussels for the best film for children, in 1966 she won the Golden Lion of Saint Mark in Venice and in 1971 the Golden Shell in San Sebastian, Spain. In all her films, Týrlová can’t hide her deep connection to children. With an immense pedagogical talent, she was able to explain even the deepest humanistic thoughts and ideals to children. Her career path wasn’t easy at all, it was hard to make it in a profession dominated by men and later cement her place among Czech animation greats such as Jiří Trnka, Karel Zeman and Břetislav Pojar.

Have a Nice Day

Liu Jian | China | 2017 | 77 min

This Chinese comedy full of black humour begins with Xiao Zhang, a construction worker who decides to steal money from his employer – a mob boss. He needs the money to take his girlfriend to South Korea and pay for plastic surgery as the operation she got in China was botched. But what he didn’t expect was that he would have to deal with his girlfriend’s intolerable and greedy friend with her partner, an inventor looking for initial capital and his not-so-sharp partner, a professional killer called Skinny and a random car driver. The situation gets so complicated that even the robbed mob boss himself and his artistic henchman must interfere. The director uses a dark but humorous plot twist to put in motion a genre mix reminiscent of noir films with absurd gangster dialogues inspired by Tarantino’s cult films. The despair of ordinary good-for-nothings makes a direct statement on the hopelessness of life at the bottom of the social ladder. The film’s atmosphere is built around its computer generated 2D animation and muted colours. The film premiered at last year’s Berlinale and won the Golden Horse at the Taipei festival after it was withdrawn from the Annecy programme by Chinese officials.

Despicable Me 3

Kyle Balda, Pierre Coffin | United States | 2017 | 90 min

Former villain Gru has a problem. He let the most wanted villain in the world slip through his fingers and as a result got fired from the Anti-Villain League. On top of all that, his Minions are becoming more and more dissatisfied and his youngest daughter Agnes wants a – just imagine it – real unicorn. And what’s more, Gru finds out that he has an identical twin brother. Except for the hair.
But let’s get back to the villain who outsmarted Gru. To his own disappointment, the forgotten child star of an 80s TV show, Balthazar Bratt, was not able to put up with the fact that his career has ended and since then he just causes harm. Gru’s brother Dru, on the other hand, is much more likeable. He is an incredibly friendly and nice guy who most of all wants his brother to reveal the secrets of being a villain to him. But Gru’s villain days are over and the only reason he’s willing to do that is to protect his loved ones.
Even though the main storyline is unexceptional, it is spiced up with a number of sub-plots and pop-culture references. This family comedy with distinct 80s stylization and slightly absurd humour will please mainly children as the Minions are once again in the spotlight. The grown-ups will appreciate the film’s 3D animation, visual inventiveness and detailed settings.

TV panorama: Serials X-Rated

různí / various | United States | 67 min

Anifilm visitors don’t need to be lectured on the fallaciousness
of the conviction that animation means production for children, but we need to emphasise that this block presenting top
American night-time animated shows produced mainly by Adult
Swim, should not be seen by children. It could easily happen
that the children would be charmed into improper adoration of
the godless ideals of the lives of metalheads, that they would
like the improprieties that washed-up stars of animated series
for children indulge in, or, worst of all, that they would beg their
parents to get them a loyal Satan-worshipping dog. Shock-proof
grown-up audiences able to deal with some obscene allusions,
emptied guts and moronic phantasmagoria can appreciate the
variety of used animation techniques. Drawn Together is built
around combining characters created using different styles and
methods. Superjail! and King Star King will leave you breathless
with their fanatically fluid animation bringing to life chaotic
drawing reminiscent of doodles from the edges of your notepads
made during lectures or meetings.

TV Panorama: Tom and the Slice of Bread... & Molly Monster

různí / various | Germany | 60 min | CS | 3+

Both series build unique worlds of characters that are easily
accessible by young audiences. Sensitively, but deliberately, the
authors emphasize emotions that children deal with.
Tom’s everyday wish is to have a big slice of bread with strawberry jam and honey. But it is not easy to get. And even when he
asks the miller and the bees waiting for their queen, no one has
any bread for him or is not willing to give it to him. He also gets
ridiculed for his wish. But we eventually find out that his wish is
not stupid, ridiculous or unattainable. The repeating pattern of
the story always brings a surprising conclusion.
The adventures of Molly Monster are set in a world built after careful consideration of psychological findings about development
of children in the early years – these children are also the series’
target group. Molly is a young dragon whom her parents shower
with love as much as each other. That enables her to trust in the
world that surrounds her, explore it fearlessly and feel joy.

Tom & das Erdbeermarmeladebrot mit Honig/Tom and the Slice of Bread with Strawberry Jam and Honey

Tom and the Strawberry Mouse
Tired out Tom
Tom and the Poor Little Girl
Tom´s Mum
Tom and The Miller´s Pig
Tom Without Glasses

Created by Andreas Hykade, DE, 2003, 6x5 min


Molly Monster

New Shoes
I’m So Sad
Ballet Anyone
Open up
A Box Full of Surprises
Hot Breath

Created by Ted Sieger
Directed by Ted Sieger, Michael Ekblad, DE, SWE, CH, 2009, 6x5 min

TV Panorama: Clangers

Mole Hill, Chris Tichborne | United Kingdom | 2015 | 66 min | CS | 3+

It was 1969 when British television first showed footage of a
newly discovered species. Clangers look like pink mice, communicate by means of melodic whistling and live deep underground
– but on a different planet. They share their planet with other
remarkable creatures such as tiny Glow Buzzers and huge Sky
Moos. We will also meet the benign Soup Dragon who cooks
soup in soup wells, her child Baby Soup Dragon and the Iron
Chick. The adventures of the Clangers are peaceful and amiable.
In 2015, the BBC broadcast their new adventures in which the
late Oliver Postgate (the original screenwriter and narrator) was
replaced by Monty Python’s Michael Palin. The authors remained
faithful to stop-motion animation and, like 40 years ago, the
artistic design was supervised by Peter Firmin.

Holes
Baby Soup Dragon
Small‘s New Star
The Singing Asteroid
Major‘s Meteor
Metal Bug

Created by Peter Firmin a Oliver Postgate
Directed by Mole Hill, Chris Tichborne, UK, 2015, 11 min

Zootopia

Byron Howard, Rich Moore | United States | 2016 | 109 min | CS

TV Panorama: Villains and Superheroes

různí / various | 59 min

Instead of saving the world from destruction, he rather spends all
the allocated mission funds on alcohol, stylish clothes and high-
-class prostitutes. Meet Archer, the James Bond of FX Television’s
immensely popular series with 9 seasons made so far.

In the eyes of many people, an astronaut can be a superhero, too.
Especially if he has to fight a treacherous melon. The pilot episode
of the prepared series Black Holes is certainly promising – and not
only because of its excellent 3D animation and stylization.

The Axe Cop series brilliantly reflects its origins. It was a hit webcomic series created by brothers Malachai (age 5 when the series
began) and Ethan Nicolle (age 29 when the series began). The
animated adaptation of the webcomic about a gruff and tough
policeman-superhero recreates the style of the original. It is set in a
relatively ordinary world and deals with nonsensical plots and bad
guys only a child’s imagination can come up with.

The Man-Woman Case series retraces the true story of Eugene
Falleni, the first transgender murderer in recent history. Married as
a man, he will be incarcerated as a woman. Apart from its unusual
story, the series is characteristic for its elaborate fluid animation.
If you ever called a film or a series “stoner,” you should definitely
compare it with Major Lazer. The green-leaf superhero will take you
for a ride you will never forget!

TV Panorama: Michel

Dewi Noiry, Pauline Pinson, Ivan Rabbiosi | France | 2012 | 66 min | CS

Michel has loving parents who don’t care what he looks like and
don’t adhere to conventions regarding who should bake, cook
and do the chores around the house. Michel also doesn’t shy
away from the kids at his school. He could easily have four eyes
and be green and furry! And he is! And unlike other children,
he commutes to school on the step of a dustcart and instead
of candy, he swallows careless pigeons. Michel is therefore an
ideal character for the youngest children to identify with, but
his humorous and almost Dadaistic stories will appeal to older
audiences too. Each episode focuses on ordinary human interactions and connects them with humorous nonsensical details. It
puts emphasis on children’s world and its heroes who can often
surprise grown-ups. This playful animated series is based on the
stories by popular French children’s books author Marie-Aude
Murail.

The Blubber Blaster
The Hamster
Michel the Magician
The Wrong Truck
Allowance
Highway Hens

Created by Dewi Noiry, Pauline Pinson, Ivan Rabbiosi
Directed by Dewi Noiry, Pauline Pinson, Ivan Rabbiosi, FR, 2012, 11 min

Dimensions of 3D Animation: 2D versus 3D

různí / various | 70 min

As its very name suggests, 3D-CG animation artists create 3D
objects, placing them in 3D space. As the novelty of 3D-CG has
worn off, it has become something with which to experiment,
challenge and push against. Sampling the ingenious ways
animators combine 2D and 3D, the screening opens with the 2D
bodies of Day and Night acting as windows into their 3D environments. Across the selection, we see 2D figures inhabit 3D spaces
(in Dark Noir a 3D PI in a 3D world searches out 2D daemons,
while stop-motion paper 2D dogs and cats chase around in the
3D spaces of My Happy End). A 3D Death and a duck traverse the
2D world of Duck, Death and the Tulip and combinations of 2D/3D
software create hybrid spaces and figures (Paperman and Paths
of Hate with its the 3D graphics rendered in a comic book look).
Motion-captured bodies inhabit 3D spaces inspired by WWI
photographs in Ghosts, and in Mamoon, a 3D figure created in
Maya is projected into a live-action polystyrene space. Five Years
Older – the City and Mountain Castle Mountain Flower Plastic use
a more experimental style to fuse 2D drawing with 3D elements.
Finally, Blissful Accidental Death takes a mixed media approach,
bringing together drawings on paper and animated objects with
2D and 3D CG animation.

Day and Night
Directed by Teddy Newton, USA, 2010, 6 min

Dark Noir
Directed by Rafael Grampá, USA, 2014, 4 min

Paths of Hate
Directed by Damian Nenow, Poland, 2010, 11 min

Duck, Death and the Tulip
Directed by Jorge Sandoval, Ella Yoon, USA, 2018, 6 min

Five Years Older: The City
Directed by Dirk Koy, CH, 2012, 4 min

My Happy End
Directed by Milen Vitanov, GER, 2007, 5 min

Mountain Castle Mountain Flower Plastic
Directed by Annapurna Kumar, USA, 2017, 4 min

Mamoon
Directed by Ben Steer, UK, 2017, 7 min

Ghosts
Directed by Simon McKeown, UK, 2014, 3 min

Paperman
Directed by John Kahrs, USA, 2012, 7 min

Blissful Accidental Death
Directed by Sergiu Negulici, ROU, 2017, 15 min

TV Panorama: Adult Swim presents II

různí / various | United States | 80 min

The original production made for Cartoon Network’s night-time
identity Adult Swim is appealing mainly thanks to its vulgar
humour and crazy hyperbola of various schemes and tropes of
modern audio-visual pop-culture, in particular its marginalized
parts. But there is unjustly little attention paid to how its authors
work with various animation techniques and to what artistic
means and expressions they use them. One of Adult Swim’s celebrities, illustrator, humorist and composer Brad Neely acquired
cult following with his wet delirium of a university professor
called China, IL. He used the newly found popularity to create
a purely nonsensical and Dadaistic sketch comedy show Brad Neely’s Harg Nallin’ Sclopio Peepio. Apart from unbound 2D animation and drawing bringing the most bizarre scenes and characters
to life as in the absurd American pseudo-reality recycling The
Jellies!, Adult Swim also gives space to other techniques. Beside
the isolated take on 3D models in Luci, the Daughter of the Devil,
huge popularity was won by stop-motion series Frankenhole and
the parody sketch show Robot Chicken.

Dimension of 3D Animation: Lighting

různí / various | 74 min

No matter whether we are looking at animation or live-action,
lighting is fundamental. Animation, including 3D-CG, has the
advantage of drawing on two traditions: cinema and animation.
The opening and closing animations in this strand / programme
push these influences to their extremes. Our opener Garden
Party gives pond life a hyper-real dimension through a photoreal
aesthetic. As a direct contrast, in Please Say Something, artificiality
is at the fore. In very different ways, these two animations control
and shape both light and shadows, developing the tonal shifts
of a character and their story-world, and also adding to a scene’s
composition. Between these opposites are animations following
the same impulse and whose lighting strategies combine photoreal lighting with a stop-motion look (Perfect Houseguest), highly
textured CG models (Song of Toad) or a cartoon style (Blik and 366
Tage), while Pure White plays on the contrast between a photorealistic and slightly damaged CG anatomical model and its pure
surrounds. With Red Rabbit, different lighting schemes emphasise
the hopes and fears of the central protagonist, and for Good Vibrations, lighting emphasises the glass shield of the building that the
characters must step beyond. More experimental examples include
Feast, a colour test of Disney’s software Meander and their renderer
Hyperion; Light Motif offers a meditation on the absorptive and
reflective surfaces of fur, spheres and flat surfaces; and None uses
volumetric lighting to heighten the shadowy atmosphere of a fog-
-covered cityscape.

Garden Party
Directed by Florian Babikian, Vincent Bayoux, Victor Caire, Théophile Dufresne, Gabriel Grapperon, Lucas Navarro, FR, 2016, 7 min

366 Days/ 366 Tage
Directed by Johannes Schiehsl, GER, 2011, 12 min

Red Rabbit
Directed by Egmont Mayer, GER, 2007, 8 min

Pure White
Directed by Windszus Sven, GER, 2018, 3 min

Perfect Houseguest
Directed by Ru Kuwahata, Max Porter, FR, 2015, 2 min

None
Directed by Ash Thorp, USA, 2017, 3 min

Song of a Toad
Directed by Kariem Saleh, GER, 2017, 7 min

Blik
Directed by Bastiaan Schravendeel, NDL, 2010, 8 min

Light Motif
Directed by Frédéric Bonpapa, UK/FR, 2014, 4 min

Feast
Directed by Patrick Osborne, USA, 2014, 6 min

Please Say Something
Directed by David O‘Reilly, GER/IR, 2008, 10 min

Dimensions of 3D Animations: Textures

různí / various | 75 min

Beautifully designed models along with expressive movements
and gestures are only part of the visual appeal of 3D-CG animation. The surface textures of figures and objects are also key to
its craft. Using texture mapping or shaders, artists add details to
the surfaces of models, which combined with lighting decisions,
create nuanced shifts in a character’s appearance and surroundings as they undergo the journeys of their individual story.
Our selected line-up includes works exploiting the details and
reflective properties of metallic surfaces in the bronze god-figure
of God and the weathered ‘Petramosuarus Cavator’ figures of Age
of Rust. Several use distinctive cross-hatched textures to heighten
our insight into a character experience, with The Bellies, L’ère bête
and The Head Vanishes using subtle changes in shading to convey
facets of character experience. Heart, too, uses shading to depict
registers of its abstracted characters within a limited palette of
colours. Taking abstraction further, Surface Detail is a kaleidoscope of iterative polygonal surface transformations. Working with
quite different styles, textures evoke the sci-fi aesthetic of the
CG/stop-motion Ark and the painterly look essential to the tone
of The Lost Thing.

God
Directed by Konstantin Bronzit, RU, 2003, 4 min

The Bellies / Les ventres
Directed by Philippe Grammaticopoulos, FR, 2009, 15 min

Surface Detail
Directed by Tom Beddard, UK, 2011, 3 min

Age of Rust
Directed by Francesco Aber, Alessandro Mattei, ITA, 2014, 7 min

L‘ère bête
Directed by Thomas Caudron, Ingrid Menet, Clément Tissier, Laurent
Meriaux, FR, 2011, 7 min

Heart
Directed by Erick Oh, USA, Jižní Korea, 8 min

The Head Vanishes / Une tête disparaît
Directed by Franck Dion, CAN/FR, 2016, 9 min

Arka / Ark
Directed by Grzegorz Jonkajtys, PL, 2007, 7 min

The Lost Thing
Directed by Andrew Ruhemann, Shaun Tan, AU/UK, 2010, 15 min

Universum Brdečka

Miroslav Janek | Czech Republic | 2017 | 84 min | CS | EN titulky

“I don’t feel like an author of animated films in the true sense of the word,” confessed Jiří Brdečka, who would have celebrated his 100^th birthday on Christmas Eve 2017. Even though the Czech general public knows him mainly as the co-author of live-action films with special effects such as Lemonade Joe, The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians, Dinner for Adele and The Emperor and the Golem, animators all over the world without a doubt perceive him as a great of Czech animation. Brdečka was a screenwriter, illustrator and director who found fame mainly through his collaboration with Jiří Trnka, but he also worked on animated films with Jiří Šalamoun (Loooove) and Kamil Lhoták (Love and the Zeppelin). His film The Incorrectly Drawn Hen brought him international renown. To commemorate the aforementioned anniversary, an extraordinary documentary was made by director Miroslav Janek. In this film, the director in collaboration with Tereza Brdečková, Jiří Brdečka’s daughter, gradually explores the mind of the great artist and introduces the viewers to a world where paintings, graphics, oils, aquarelles, frescos and mosaics miraculously come to life. But what kind of person was he? Where did he seek his inspiration and what was his rich inner world like? Where did he hide from the oppressive political regime, only to later show his free and timeless art to the world? Miroslav Janek’s documentary searches for answers to these and more questions.

 

Candide

Zsuzsanna Kreif, Olivér Hegyi | Hungary | 2018 | 70 min | HU | EN titulky

Is there anyone out there who has not heard of Candide? Yet, who made an effort to really understand Voltaire’s masterpiece? Here is a chance to rethink the original book, and get an open-minded adaptation set in the 21st century. Let the eternal questions disturb the silence of your sofa. Devastating love, 2D blood, cheating and hunting! Follow the three protagonists – Candide, his guru Pangloss and the irresistible Cunegonde – on their global travel through wars, endangered rainforests, immigration zones, hidden genetic labs, an apocalypse, space missions and talent shows. A full 91 minutes of witty fun and amazing graphic design. The series is in line with popular shows like South Park, Bojack Horseman, Rick and Morty, and Mr. Bean. The first episode of the series competed at Anifilm 2015.

Paddington 2

Paul King | United Kingdom, France | 2017 | 103 min | CS

British director and screenwriter Paul King returned to the stories of the found bear Paddington by Michael Bond and adapted another adventure of this plush fuzzball in a red hat for the big screen.
Having settled with his adoptive family, the Browns, Paddington – originally from Peru – has become popular in his community. He gets a job in order to make money for a present for his aunt Lucy, who longs to see London. He discovers a pop-up book of London in an antique shop, but he’s unfortunately not the only one who would like to get his hands on this rarity. The other one is a failed actor named Phoenix Buchanan (played by master of disguise Hugh Grant) and Paddington unjustly winds up in prison. He will experience dramatic pursuits, a prison escape, humorously written slapstick-like situations and a tour of London. His quest is visually supplemented by amazing artistic ideas, magical archive footage and an originally animated pop-up book.

 

TV Panorama: F for Family

různí / various | 60 min

Bob‘s Burgers is an American sitcom in which Fox Television
returns to the observation of an ordinary American family like
in King of the Hill. But this family is ordinary only at first glance…
The sitcom’s main protagonist Bob runs a restaurant with his wife
and three kids. The family has ambitious plans, but their inability
to serve the guests and run their business properly often turns
their efforts into a mini apocalypse…
The Cartoon Network‘s series Secret Mountain Fort Awesome
stars a deranged family of five disgustoids. These five strange
creatures live in an underground mountain, and each episode is
filled with their whacky adventures. The expressive visual style
of the series was created by Peter Browngard who worked on
series such as Futurama and Adventure Time. The characters were
designed by Robert R. Cory.
Along with Michael Price, popular American stand-up comedian
Bill Burr created the Netflix series F Is for Family, which is another
variation on a typical American family. This series takes place in
the 70s and even though it uses vulgar humour, it is not detached from reality and deals with real-life problems. Follow the
Murphy family back to the 1970s, when kids roamed wild, beer
flowed freely and nothing came between a man and his TV set.

TV Panorama: Stick Man and Room on the Broom

různí / various | 58 min | CS | 3+

The cat of the main protagonist of the first story is not very
thrilled by its mistress’ good nature. Its mistress may be a witch
but her good heart won’t let her be merciless towards the heartbreaking fates of animals they meet on their journey.
A dog, a bird and a frog thus become their fellow travellers on
the witches’ broom, which starts to get cramped. If only the
witch wasn’t so careless and stopped dropping all her stuff including her wand and hat, they would have never met any of these
burdens! But on the other hand, they would have had more
trouble with a huge and apparently hungry dragon…
Also Stick Man, the hero of the other story, gets into trouble.
One day, a local dog picks him to be his toy and Stick Man’s life is
suddenly turned upside down. He unwillingly visits a swan’s nest
and a sandy beach and even becomes a baseball bat for a while.
Will he make it home to his family before Christmas? Both films
boast excellent 3D animation and kind narration by Michal Jagelka and Radka Stupková based on the books by Julia Donaldson.

Room on the Broom
Directed by Jan Lachauer, Max Lang, UK, 2012, 25 min

Stick Man
Directed by Jeroen Jaspaert, Daniel Snaddon, UK, 2015, 27 min

Insects

Jan Švankmajer | Czech Republic, Slovakia | 2018 | 98 min

A small-town pub after hours, the chairs are upside down on the tables. On the hanger are “insect dresses”: crepe paper skirts, colourful cardboard butterfly wings and black shiny insect elytra. At a table in the corner of the room are seated six local amateur theatre enthusiasts: the director, Růžena, Mr. Václav, Mr. Borovička, railroader Kopřiva and Miss Jitka. Tulák is at home because of his sciatica. The Dor Beetle and Pupa haven’t arrived yet. As the rehearsal of the play From the Life of Insects by the Čapek brothers progresses, the actors find themselves living out the lives of their characters. The director – Cricket – tortures his wife’s lover, Mr. Václav. Mr. Kopřiva, playing the role of Parasite, eats Miss Jitka – Larva. Mr. Borovička literally transforms into a dung beetle and leaves his human form behind. The characters of the play are born and die with no regard to time. Everything is set against the backdrop of Čapek’s play where insects behave like people and people like insects.

“From the Life of Insects is a misanthropic play. My screenplay only extends this misanthropy, as man is more like an insect and this civilisation is more like an anthill. One should also remember the message in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis,” stated Jan Švankmajer.

Dimensions of 3D Animation: Movement

různí / various | 75 min

It took 3D computer animation some time to achieve such a
fluidity of motion that the viewers would believe it and accept
it as natural. It was a tradition (now hopefully gone) that each
new Pixar film was accompanied by a campaign promoting how
the authors once again managed to improve the lifelikeness of
the movement of hair, feathers and other problematic textures.
Apart from Pixar’s bird films separated by 16 years and thus
showing the desired improvements, we have also included entirely different films. More experimental films that explore movement from other perspectives than realism. In a number of films
we can admire abstract dancing – movement of 3D artefacts
(Spin, geist.xyz, Oscillate). We can also see 3D animation used in
simulation of unobservable movement or music tones transformed into “materialised” movement (Nebula, e:e:e:e:e, 20Hz).
Procedural animation takes movement as its most elementary
quality. Since the beginning of animation, it requires extreme
prowess to animate walking. This is humorously addressed in
Walking City. The Platige studio and its main representative Tomek Bagiński are also included in our selection. With the quality
of their 3D animation, this famous Polish studio could compete
with big American companies. But we can’t avoid birds even in
non-Pixar films. The unusual protagonists of the successful film
Flamingo Pride are flamingos.

For the Birds
Directed by Ralph Eggleston, USA, 2000, 4 min

Walking City
Directed by Matt Pyke, UK, 2014, 8 min

Spin
Directed by Max Hattler, UK, 2010, 4 min

Padlé umění / Fallen Art
Directed by Tomek Baginski, PL, 2004, 6 min

Ghost Cell
Directed by Antoine Delacharlery, FR, 2015, 6 min

geist.xyz
Directed by Zeitgeist, DE, 2016, 2 min

Lou
Directed by Dave Mullins, USA, 2017, 7 min

Nebula
Directed by Marcin Nowrotek, PL, 2017, 4 min

e:e:e:e:e
Directed by Brandon Blommaert, CA, 2015, 3 min

Unnamed Soundsculpture
Directed by Daniel Franke, Cedric Kiefer, DE, 2012, 5 min

20Hz
Directed by Ruth Jarman, Joe Gerhardt, UK, 2011, 5 min

Pivot
Directed by André Bergs, NL, 2009, 5 min

Flamingo Pride
Directed by Tomer Eshed, DE, 2011, 6 min

Oscillate
Directed by Daniel Sierra, USA, 2013, 4 min

Piper
Directed by Alan Barillaro, USA, 2016, 6 min

TV Panorama: The Websters

Katarína Kerekesová | Slovakia, Poland | 2017 | 84 min | SK | 8+

There is a tiny world inside the world of humans, and just like
ours, this one is also made of stories. Its threads, however, are
woven by a spider family. The Websters live on the top floor,
in cosy cocoons hanging in an elevator shaft. Their stories will
show you how strong and resilient spider thread is, but most of
all, they will show you the real strength of the merry family this
thread binds together.

Loom the Room
The School Monster
The Loveliest Pet
Shopping Mania
Hero Daddy
The Cabriolet
Relaxing Stay

Directed by Katarína Kerekešová Designer Katarína Kerekešová
Screenplay Zuzana Dzurindová, Zuzana Križková, Henrieta Mičkovicová, Peter Nagy, Juraj Rayman, Anna Vášová Music Lucia Chutkova, Andrej Hruška, Branči Kovač, Marek Piacek, Erika Reindlová, Martin Šrámek Produced by Slovenská televízia, SK, 2017, 13 x 11 min

Mutafukaz

Guillaume Renard, Shojiro Nashimi | France, Japan | 2017 | 90 min | FR | CS titulky | 12+

Lino and Vinz are friends from Dark Meat City, which most closely resembles crime-ridden Los Angeles. But despite the palm trees, this city reeks of poverty and both heroes have to do what it takes to pay their rent and survive another month. Their need to survive acquires a new meaning when Lino starts seeing mysterious shadows and attracts the attention of guys in suits who have very trigger-happy fingers and like to practice grenade throwing. And so begins a wild chase not only through the hostile streets of DMC where clans fight Shakespeare-quoting bosses and everyone carries a gun. We find out that Lino is half Macho, a member of an extremely violent race trying to enslave Earth. But even in this rotten environment, there is a chance for salvation. Mutafukaz is based on a French comic book of the same name, the author of which co-directed the film with Shojiro Nishimi, who gained experience on films such as Akira and Batman: Gotham Knight. The film’s breath-taking visual style borrows elements from Japanese anime, is inspired by graffiti and wrestling, and boldly includes humorous interludes and PacMan-like elements.

TV Panorama: The Ugly Americans

různí / various | United States | 67 min | EN | CS titulky

The series Ugly Americans is set in an alternate reality New York.
Social worker Mark from the Department of Integration helps all
new residents from the real world and the fantasy realm to adapt
to life in a big city. When he’s not dealing with the problems of
wizards, vampires and other creatures, he has to sort out his own
life. His zombie roommate, wizard boss and demonic girlfriend
are certainly not making it any easier.

Party Legends combines live action with animation. It airs on
Viceland TV, which operates under the creative direction of Spike
Jonze. The show has American celebrities narrate crazy, often
drug-induced, true stories of things that happened to them at
parties.

Meet BoJack Horseman, a horse and a lauded star of a popular
1990s sitcom. Twenty years later, the washed-up star has become
an ultimate sourpuss, has withdrawn from public life, and is a general nuisance to his surroundings. Since it first aired on Netflix in
2014, this animated black comedy drama has become immensely
popular. While BoJack Horseman may take a satirical look at current events, politics, and show business, the show is lauded for
its realistic take on dealing with depression and self-destructive
behaviour. In the screened episode, BoJack winds up at his grandparents’ dilapidated home and we get to meet his ancestors
and find out how his mother lived when she was young.

The Lego Movie

Phil Lord, Christopher Miller | United States, Denmark, Australia | 2014 | 100 min

Who hasn’t played with Lego, raise your hand. Do not get fooled, though, this film isn’t a commercial, it is a very entertaining, dynamic and adventurous 3D comedy starring a Lego minifigure and the iconic construction toy itself. After their successful and admittedly original family film Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009), directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller reconvened to create a box-office hit. Their original script follows a construction worker named Emmet. He is a perfectly ordinary LEGO man obeying the rules and instructions who happens to find himself among rebels striving to overthrow the evil Lord Business and who accidentally think Emmet is the prophesised Special. Shy and clumsy Emmet, desperately unprepared for taking on the role of the Special, eventually stops resisting it and sets out to save the world.
This straightforward story about friendship, unity and in particular free will has a deeper meaning. You may shiver a bit spotting references to oppression and Orwellian and our real world. And when Emmet finds himself in the human world, the film combines live-action and animated scenes.

Isle of Dogs

Wes Anderson | United Kingdom, Germany | 2018 | 101 min | EN

Coco

Lee Unkrich | United States | 2017 | 105 min

Little Miguel dreams of becoming a popular musician. But everyone from his wonderful loving family is against it. It’s because his irresponsible great-great-grandfather left his wife and daughter Coco to pursue a career in music and never returned. Miguel’s great-grandmother Coco renounced music and everything related to it and the whole family – out of respect for her – supports her. But little Miguel won’t give up. On the Day of the Dead, he unexpectedly finds himself in the realm of the dead where he meets his late ancestors.
Excellent computer animation and graphics, an elaborate script with an abundance of allusions to Mexican life and culture from Frida Kahlo to the Mexican wrestler and trash-films star El Santo ranks this film among the best films ever made by Pixar. Its authors successfully and naturally captured the spiritual element of the Mexican folklore tradition of celebrating the dead. The mystery of death is addressed very tastefully and the film also conveys the message that death is a natural part of life.

Early Man

Nick Park | United Kingdom, France | 2018 | 88 min

The story of the animated comedy Early Man is set in prehistoric times when mammoths roamed the Earth and people valued their home caves. After successful films such as Creature Comforts, Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run, British studio Aardman Animations with Academy Award-winning director Nick Park comes with a film about the clash of civilisations.
Meet Dug, a typical fearless hero who along with his four-legged friend Hognob has to save his tribe and beloved home. It was invaded by Lord Nooth and the Bronze Age army. Dug finds himself in the middle of enemy territory and in despair, he challenges Lord Nooth to a match in a strange game where two opposing sides chase an inflated ball made of skin. The future of his tribe is at stake and Dug has only one chance: to learn how to play football with ten equally clumsy cavemen and defeat the elite club Real Bronzio. Will the Stone Age win over the Bronze Age?
Apart from challenges for animators of the hand-made clay cavemen dressed in pelts (hair is an extremely unyielding material for animation) and the preparation of 40 settings ranging from a primeval rainforest through arid volcano landscape to the magnificent Bronze Age City, the authors had a very difficult task ahead of themselves. They wanted to make a stop-motion football match along with its atmosphere and crowd cheering as if it was shot in a live-action film.