A band of fearless chickens flock together to save poultry-kind from an unsettling new threat: a nearby farm that's cooking up something suspicious.
Seraphim Cloud grows up near a desert retirement community in the Dinétah (Navajo Nation) There Seraphim meets Howie Heehaw; a wandering rodeo show clown from Tibet seeking a flowering blue cactus seen in a powerful vision. This is a prequel feature to upcoming feature film Twilight Park.
A young Hans Christian Andersen goes in search of knowledge in the Garden of Paradise in order to make his studies easier. Each time he falls asleep, he experiences in his dreams the different characters he would later write about in fairy tales including The Little Mermaid, Thumbelina, and The Emperor's New Clothes.
When Kris tells Sam Weatherfield, the inventor, about breaking his parent’s window and running away, Sam has Kris play a strange, colorful game called HOOMANIA. As Kris places his piece on the board, he is zapped INSIDE the game, full of life-sized animated characters like the daffy Dodo Bird or the goodie-gobbling sluggards. These crazy creatures, and others, either help or hinder Kris in his race to Mount Wisdom. Through his fantastic adventure, Kris learns the true meaning of “wisdom”.
"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.
Pieces of wood are captured by a crow and dance in celebration of spring in this animated short film.
In 1885, Africa is a succulent cake destined to be wildly divided and everyone wants a piece. A disturbed European king, a Pygmy working in a luxury hotel, a successful but lonely businessman, an enslaved porter, a young army deserter, a ghostly clarinetist. Some benefit from colonialism and greed. Others suffer racism and violence.
Mum's calling, and Lisa isn't pleased. "Hi, It's Your Mother" is a shocking tragi-comedic stop motion short about family and blood(y) ties.
About that, how parents abandoned the disobedient children and returned only then, when they reformed.
Short Soviet puppet animation based on Gogol's novel Dead Souls.
In a distant planetoid, an industrious but hapless old farmer strives to make his vegetables flourish, however, to no avail.
People are being killed off near a popular New England mountain lodge, with a legend claiming that the mountain is haunted by a deadly Native American demonic curse.
In the original short film, a young man in a green wizard costume runs throughout America at super speed, much like the superhero The Flash. Along the way, he gives a pretty girl a swift lift to another city, gives golden stars to other women who want a trip themselves. He then slips on a banana peel and comically crashes into a film stage, which he then brings to life in magical ways.
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.
On the eve of Christmas, the tears of the poor girl Marusia melted the cold and indifferent heart of the wealthy landlord. Based on the fairy tale “Tear” by the Ukrainian writer Marko Cheremshyna.
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.
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.
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 Father Christmas ornament climbs down from a decorated tree, and goes to the forest. There he creates and decorates a Christmas tree for the forest creatures. He then invites all the insects, along with a friendly frog, to come and enjoy the gifts he has prepared, and to celebrate Christmas.
The Country Rat visits his friend the Town Rat, but finds that life in the great metropolis is rather too hectic (and dangerous - there's a live cat among all the puppet rodents!)