This is Your Brain on Animation

Two men sit on an island watching the sunset. When a storm gathers, they decide to build a boat. While one man is mindful of the coming danger and urges speed, the other wastes his time on decorative details. Dammbeck’s last film made in the GDR before he left for West Germany is based on a Chinese fable, with music by internationally known jazz musician Günter “Baby” Sommer.

For the multimedia exhibition Tangenten I (Tangents I), Dammbeck and co-organizer, sculptor and painter Frieder Heinze had planned to collaborate on a film that would combine non-camera animation with 35mm footage of a train ride between the two Dresden districts of Radebeul and Pieschen. When the exhibition was banned in 1978, Heinze turned to other projects, but Dammbeck continued working on the film by himself. Metamorphoses I—the first experimental film ever to be shown publicly in East Germany—marks the filmic beginning of Dammbeck’s long-term art project the Herakles-Konzept (Hercules Concept).

A monk carves one thousand Buddha statues throughout the year to enter nirvana.

Waiting to board the train, an old lady just wants to eat her cookies in peace, but hijinks ensue when a teenager on the platform next to her seems intent on sharing them, too.

Anatomy of a moth

A woman is dealing with trauma, but tonight she might be going over the edge.

Agent 327 is investigating a clue that leads him to a shady barbershop in Amsterdam. Little does he know that he is being tailed by mercenary Boris Kloris.

A cable car ride through the San Francisco of the early 20th century marks the background that bids farewell to the alleged blessings of capitalism.

A small creature, awakened by a white crow, tries to reach the sun and freedom. But using this freedom is by no means easy.

A stop-motion animation that dissolves a conversation on friendship, longing and loss into a seamless loop that follows a furry creature paddling through a swampy river scene. The subtitles are neither clearly attributed to the scenery, nor to the characters in it.

Ferdinand, Battlefield Rat

The 365 days animation consists of sequence of 8760 pictures, all different shape and color, hand-drawn by the director every day in 365 days. This is the ultimate analog approach by the abstract animated film creator in digital era.

The Shah is about to marry his daughter off but she is kidnapped by a sorceress. A knight ho has fallen desperately in love wit her guards her. The story ends tragically.

An educational short film about bullying.

In a daycare far, far away… but still in Springfield, Maggie is on an epic quest for her stolen pacifier. Her adventure brings her face-to-face with young Padawans, Sith Lords, familiar droids, Rebel scum, and an ultimate battle against the dark side, in this original short celebrating the Star Wars galaxy.

The end of the year is a time to reflect, and this outstanding music video let’s us remember everything from the Big Bang to…the end. And what a splendid thing it all is. The animation has a youthful sense of fun to it (especially when a monkey discovers weapons and murder), and the constantly rotating, fabric-covered globe is inspired.

This short film utilizes intricate clay animation to tell of King Ngolo, who is without a male heir. Jealousies among his three wives and with his first love — now the court witch doctor — thwart birth of a successor. Finally blessed with a male heir, the king dies during the Prince's coronation; "Birth and death are twins in the destiny of man," concludes the narrator-griot.

My Small Doll House features a woman’s fear, fantasy, and anxious psychology toward the world by contrasting a doll and a girl playing with it in a box. The small box is a safe place hidden in her deep conscious world, but she must open it and step out of the world.

A musical film in the style of Belarusian vycinanka based on the song of the folk band Troitsa. The old man and woman have become quite old and would like to marry their son before they die. So they send him to find a bride.

The two pigs building houses of hay and sticks scoff at their brother, building the brick house. But when the wolf comes around and blows their houses down (after trickery like dressing as a foundling sheep fails), they run to their brother's house. And throughout, they sing the classic song, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?".