The Big Cheese

A man's repeated attempts to retrieve an apple off a high tree branch all prove fruitless. What does he want the apple for? That would be telling.

The travelogue is mobilised again by animator Lesley Keen in Burrellesque, commissioned for Glasgow’s European Capital of Culture 1990 programme. Drifting through Glasgow’s Pollok Park towards the Burrell Collection as seasons shift, Keen’s 35mm film convenes with the spiritual life of the artefacts held therein. These objects break out as kaleidoscopic visions, ripped from their place of origin; escapees pointing to Scotland’s own history of cultural extraction.

A humorous and thought-provoking view of what animals in zoos might be thinking about their captivity and surroundings.

A bilious misanthrope finds enlightment via heaven, hell and the kitchen cupboard.

A critique of marketing speak in the commercial cartoon industry.

A narrator relates the Japanese tale of two lovers who defy their families and society to be together. The tale ends happily, until something happens to make this tale truly Japanese in character.

A heavyset woman who keeps being harassed by her aerobics instructor and her attempts to get even with him on a Body Beautiful contest.

Animation set in the Middle Ages.

A young man in prison is interviewed and talks about his life, how he got into prison, and what it's like doing time.

The morning shift at a big-city radio station.

A part-time musician gets off his day job as a window washer for a disturbing apartment complex to a gig for a charity event. The rich arrive, and the food runs low. Luckily, there are the homeless and other non-economic contributors around to fit the bill.

A topsy-turvy world.

A man made of newspaper waits and waits by the telephone.

A young boy struggles with bed-wetting. He is pleased to awaken one night to a dry bed, but terrors await him on his trip to the bathroom in the middle of a dark and stormy night.

The last hundred years of Marxism, as seen through the eyes of animator Pavel Koutský.

A man with a gun for a head and two conjoined twins share a prison cell.

Documentary about the abstract filmmaker.

This humorous animated short offers one possible answer to the philosophical question: what would life be like if I had never lived? The first half of the film follows a man from his conception to his funeral, focusing on the effect his life has on the people and events around him. The second half looks again at the same people and events, except now the man is not there - he had never been born. The differences will surprise you!

A Four-Mations documentary covering the importance of audial sound in the medium of animation.

Animator Pavel Koutský's portrait of the man in the street; just an animal.