For the past 40 years, Jan Svankmajer (Faust, Conspirators of Pleasure) has been hailed as one of cinema's most consistently surprising, wildly imaginative, and remarkable surrealists of our time. Utilizing a delirious combination of puppets, humans, stop-motion animation, and live action, Svankmajer's films conjure up a dreamlike universe that is at once dark, macabre, witty, and perversely visceral. KimStim (and Kino) is proud to to offer this collection of remarkable short works from an artist that has mesmerized audiences the world over and has inspired filmmakers from the Brothers Quay to Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam.
In the kingdom of animals, Master Fox is used to trick and fool everyone. So the King, the Lion, receives more and more complaints about him. He orders that Master Fox is arrested and brought to him.
A young girl who has caught a nightingale dreams about the songbird and its mate, and comes to realize that birds are not meant to be captive.
Professor Ludwig von Drake plays a variety of popular music, all of which he wrote. First, ragtime: the Rutabaga Rag, with vegetables dancing in stop-motion. Next, the Charleston, with cut-out animation of a singer and dancers. Dixieland and more cut-out animation; the crooner/love ballad; 50's doo-wop; and finally, rockabilly.
Selkirk, an unruly, selfish pirate, is the sailing master of the Esperanza, an English galley sailing the South Seas in search of treasures. When Captain Bullock decides to abandon him on an uninhabited island, he discovers a new outlook on the world and learns to survive alone, becoming the real Robinson Crusoe.
Once upon a time there were the tsar with the tsaritsa also there was at them a son Ivan-Tsarevich. And everything would be good if Ivan parents didn't come one morning and didn't tell them about the Beloved Beauty about which to it nurses sang, and now every day dreams. Also he wants to go in this world to look for to Beloved Beauty. Ivan-Tsarevich went, and to him the robber Bulat who became a sworn brother on the way. They began to look for Beauty.
Jeannot, a young boy living in the countryside with his mother and grandfather, ventures into the forest at night to pick a fern flower before the cock crows.
"Román s basou" is another short by master a stop-motion puppet-animator Jiri Trnka. The story is based on Anton Chekhovs story "Roman s Kontrabasom". Princess Bibulova decides to go fishing along the river while not far away a bass player leaves his two companions to go for a swim.
Marcel is an adorable one-inch-tall shell who ekes out a colorful existence with his grandmother Connie and their pet lint, Alan. Once part of a sprawling community of shells, they now live alone as the sole survivors of a mysterious tragedy. When a documentarian discovers them amongst the clutter of his Airbnb, his resulting short film brings Marcel millions of passionate fans, as well as unprecedented dangers and a new hope at finding his long-lost family.
Burroughs takes down a book and reads us the story of Danny the Carwiper, who spends Christmas Day trying to score a fix, but finds the Christmas spirit instead.
An encounter in the woods is captured on a trail cam.
Two brothers, who are both hunters and live with their mother, go to the mountains to set traps for deer. Suddenly, a demon grabs the younger brother. The older brother shoots an arrow, severing the demon's arm, which they plan to take home. But they make a grisly discovery on the journey home.
Set in prehistoric times, this short film was created for the Edison Company by Willis H. O'Brien, a pioneer of American stop-motion animation.
Short stop motion animation film based upon the work of Pierre Corneille.
Two male dolls compete to win the heart of female doll Dolly Daisy.
In the 1960s, young Judy is captivated by an advertisement for toy guns. But when she discovers her parents' real firearm, the line between playful fantasy and dangerous reality blurs.
Forcibly separated from her twin brother when they are orphaned, a melancholic misfit learns how to find confidence within herself amid the clutter of misfortunes and everyday life.
"The Pine's Branches" is the latest work in Murata Tomoyasu’s series “Sei toshi ni matsuwaru kioku no tabi (Journey through memories of life and death),” which he began following the Tohoku earthquake in 2011.
What can an old apple tree tell us? What mysteries are hidden in his roots, gnarled over time? Does he remember the serpent and the lost Paradise? Our body remembers more than we can expect and imagine. It remembers the sorrow and pain of our predecessors. It keeps alive the stories of our parents and grandparents as well as their ancestors. But how far back is it possible to go in your bodily memory? The stop-motion animation BODY MEMORY takes as its central concept the idea that our body remembers, not only individual experiences, but also the sorrow and pain of our predecessors. A powerful visualization of subconscious processes and the hidden horror of deportation. Inspired by historical events: the Soviet deportations from Estonia in the 1940s.
In a dream Uncle Jack looks through a magic telescope owned by the ghost of a hermit and sees what life was like millions of years ago, including a battle between prehistoric monsters.