Fokus

It was House that finished collaboration between Walerian Borowczyk and Jan Lenica. Simultaneously, the film opened them a door to the international career. House was inspired by French avant-garde tradition of the 1920s. Different scenes, varied stylistically and thematically, take place inside the secession tenement house.

A mysterious man with fake wings unexpectedly finds himself in a labyrinth of the unknown town. Dangerous, hybrid creatures inhabit this place. The man decides on a risky escape. Labirynth is a cut-out animation.

Likewise in Little Western, Giersz uses a technique of painting figures directly on a tape without framing images. A battle between the bull and the bullfighter becomes a starting point for a witty and light animated play.

The film was awarded for the best debut during the Oberhausen festival. A man in a ball falls down in the earth. He finds himself in the world dominated by numbers, equations and geometrical figures. When others are merging into the crowd of the numbers One, the man decides to change into one of them. He finally wants to belong to the community.

The film was made in the year of the student revolt against totalitarian rule in 1968. Hobby links a drawn technique with a cut-out technique. It is a grotesque story about female possessiveness, but simultaneously a metaphor of political enslavement and a fight for freedom. The film was awarded in Oberhausen.

The Voyage, sometimes called an “anti-film”, is one of turning points in Szczechura’s career as well as in the history of Polish animation. Seemingly, nothing happens in the film. The viewer watches a train-journey. A rhythm of the film is determined by monotonous sounds, pylons or landscapes that the train is passing.

One of the most stirring animated films ever. In a simple, but powerful way Czekala presents a horror that happened in concentration camps everyday – prisoners’ dread, humiliation and lost humanity. The Roll-Call crossed borders of what can or can’t be presented in animation. It is sometimes interpreted as a response to the trend of allegorical and philosophical films of 1960s.

It is a philosophical parable about a man at the crossroads. He divides himself in two, as he cannot decide on the one way only. Each half follows its own path. When they meet again, they do not fit each other any longer. The journey changed them irreversibly.

It is still one of the most popular Polish animated films. Servants prepare the table for a luxurious dinner party in a beautiful palace. Guests are gathering slowly. Suddenly they are surprised by an unexpected change of roles between the eater and the one who is eaten.

People enter the small room in turn. Firstly, one by one, then the sequences of rhythmical moves start looping and overlapping, but characters do not interfere with each other. It is accurate time compression within a limited space. Tango won the very first Oscar in history of Polish cinema.

Kalina links traditional animation with a re-projection. To the rhythm of the popular folk song Ukochany kraj, umiłowany kraj (Beloved country, dear country) he creates an anti-ballade about the farmer’s hard life and difficult work. Monotonous and mechanical activities degrade a man. 

It is a story full of nonsensical sense of humour told to rhythms of the Meritum jazz band music. A woman is preparing herself for going out. Later, she meets a man in the nightclub who is charmed by her andknows nothing about an unpleasant surprise that awaits him. The film was awarded in Annecy for an interesting usage of music. 

Příběh na motivy Kafkových Deníků se soustředí na několik let spisovatelova života. Dumała zachycuje plastičnost jazyka autora Procesu a jeho schopnost vyjádřit smyslnost a smyslovost světa. Franz Kafka je vyroben technikou rytí do malířské sádry. Je příkladem autorovy oblíbené psychologické animace.

One of the parts of the trylogy based on Carmen by Georges Bizet. The other animations made in this series in a favourite author’s technic are  Carmen – Habanera (1995) and Carmen – Torero (1996). 

The film, that links the traditional technique with cut-out animation, is an impression inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach’s music.

The film links puppet animation with computer animation. It is a story about searching for the one’s own identity. A shapeless character, looking for the best face for him, whittles many masks. However, none suits him. Finally, he founds the best one in an unexpected place. Masks received the Golden Bear for the best animation in Berlin and the Golden Dragon in Krakow.

It is a surrealist story about human passions. A gentleman is seduced during a phone talk by the mysterious winged man who lives in a beautiful palace. He imprisons the gentleman during their first meeting. They begin a chess game that will change into the erotic game full of aggression and violence. 

It is an animation made for the last song by Grzegorz Ciechowski, the leader of the Republika band. It was to be the fragment of the 30-minute-long film that Wilczyński planned with Ciechowski. Unfortunately, the artist’s sudden death in 2001 interrupted the work. Wilczyński finished Death to five in March 2002 and he added a new ending.

It is a dream-like story about a man, who finds the mysterious cathedral on the remote planet. The cathedral becomes alive when first sunbeams fall on the building. The film is based on the short fantasy story written by Jacek Dukaj. It was nominated to the Oscar award.

It is a story about the couple of old angels. They live together happily, agreeing with each other. One night they start dreaming about the time of their youth. The parallel images of the same story become different, and they uncover hidden emotions and dark sides of the soul. The dream embarrasses old angels. 

The „symphony of the image and sound” presents uncertainty of life and events. It is Kucia’s crowning achievement in which a stream of images without traditional narration integrates with a stream of sounds.

The merited officers, that the army wanted to get rid of, live in a remote and god-forsaken military base in the Pacific. They went mad as a result of war experiences. However, they can work on their hobbies in the remote place as for instance the old General fascinated by art, which he creates in a very terrifying way. This is a story full of absurd, black humour.

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, after all the apples have fallen from trees everything is asleep, as well as a mother and her child in a small flat. Meanwhile, when the mind sleeps… 

The film is inspired by the invention of English photographer and inventor, who design zoopraxiscope in 1879. It was found as a prototype of the cinematograph, because it enabled to animate photographs and record consecutive move stages.

The film is inspired by the invention of English photographer and inventor, who design zoopraxiscope in 1879. It was found as a prototype of the cinematograph, because it enabled to animate photographs and record consecutive move stages.

The two-minute plasticine animation presents a story about finding each other once again. It enchants the viewer with its simplicity and bright, sunny colours. The couple is sitting at the breakfast table in silence and the reality appears from the characters’ movements and gestures. Everything will change when an unexpected wind enters the kitchen. 

The falling drop marks out the course of events. A constant transformation in nature is happening and expresses the triumphal life force; a life that is always reborn, and it creates new forms from the same material. The film was awarded the Golden Jabberwocky for the best student animation in the Etiuda&Anima festival in 2008.

It is a sort of the feministic attempt of the documentary-like animation recording the housewife’s everyday life. The woman wants to escape from stupefying repetitive activities, so she starts doing… artistic collages made of rubbish. Bosek’s début was awarded many times. She uses pastels and aquarelles. 

Reality mixed with the dream-like world of character’s inner experiences. A man leaves his house, but memories of the person close to his heart, who he lost, torment him constantly. He starts recalling images of the time when they were together. Trębacz’s expressive music emphasizes a suggestive way of presenting the loneliness and separation.

It is a sophisticated story about female experiences in three generations of women. The letter, left by the grandmother to the granddaughter, begins series of memories, emotions, experiences, which are expressed in a poetical impression of images and sounds. Everything is interlaced alike experiences of characters.

It is animation inspired by a hyperbolic and multidimensional geometry. The definition of the „inside out” is a starting point for the film. A man wakes up in the morning and eats breakfast during which he starts bending, unbending, twisting all things around, including a house, a mug, a clock...

The lonely man is living in the house near railway tracks. During one of his everyday supper an event uncovers an inconvenient truth about himself. It is a simple story about life, which goes on not only at the same level as the man’s eyes.

An animated documentary about Łódź, a city whose name provokes to give the film such a title. Rich, collage picture of modern reality, far from media and for the most – tourist stereotypes, characterising our place on the map of united Europe. 

A man disappeared in unexplained circumstances. What happened to him? Was he worried about something? How did his life look like? People from the same housing estate, who met him from time to time, try to answer these questions. This is a simple animation made in a documentary style. 

A non-narrative, improvised film painted with water and disappearing ink on magic paper. The film can be read as a journey of a man across an oppressive world of geometrical forms and mathematical formulas.

Inspired by a famous Irish song, a metaphorical puppet animation about a hero who was lost in the world of people who lost their heads. Universal in its message picture of modern society in which an ordinary human being trying to make the dreams come true must simulate to the others.

An interpretation of the Polish lullaby by Janina Porazińska with the same title. The tragedy turns out to be only a bad dream and the dream intertwines with reality.

Pafnucy, a furry lubber with a latex trunk, is unhappy with his looks. He views Kalasanty’s pictures with envy considering him a healthy and joyful personality. Meanwhile, lonely Kalasanty is bitten by the same bug.

A history of a girl trapped between two worlds, connected with a umbilical cord of pictures and emotions. By making a neologism using in the title the author suggested to the viewer an existence the intangible point of contact of what is carnal and spiritual.

An accidental meeting of mother and daughter with an interesting, stranger man. An effort to convert a hidden desires in a poetic image of overtly erotic nature.

Two American secret agents – Frank and Wendy – are sent to the world’s hotbed of danger, known as Estonia. Frank and Wendy, for whom saving the world is their daily work, achieve both mental and manual feats with the greatest of ease. It appears that nothing can prevent their ultimate victory, but go figure. The axis of evil does not wither…

Two young ladybirds Tim and Mia are unexpectedly taken into a human family’s house together with a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve. Tim and Mia set about seeking the way back to the forest. The animated film Ladybirds’ Christmas is made for school age children.

Somewhere in Europe by a great sea stands a small village, where all kinds of inventions are held in great esteem. The villagers organise an annual competition of new inventions. One of the best creators in the village is Oscar, the father of the energetic girl-dog Lotte, and victory in this years’ competition is very important for the entire family.

The heroes of the film are three bear cubs from the cult painting by Ivan Shishkin Morning in a Pine Forest. Having lost their painter mom, the three brothers Henry, Vincent and August happen to appear in Paris, in the city of every creator. All attempts to earn their living as artists fail. They have to set off on the way to find the heritage of their mom.

Anti has worked as a TV-set repairman all his life. One day he realizes – it is the world that needs to be repaired.

Anti has worked as a TV-set repairman all his life. One day he realizes – it is the world that needs to be repaired.

Who is that woman whose dress remembers a beautiful and exciting life with kitchen utensils? We never see the woman in full, although we move along her body, or more precisely along her dress, since the dress and the body can be the same. From time to time, various insects appear to ridicule her innocent dreams.

Dialogos is an experimental animated film, where all the visual material of the film is drawn directly onto the film stock. The film is based on absurd humour. The theme of the film is contemporary high-tech society, where too many sign systems exist.

The story of a former opera star who must by the will of Fate work as a Crocodile in a styrofoam costume entertaining children in the children’s playroom of a shopping centre. This kind of life seems joyless and even disgusting to the former leading tenor, and he vents his frustration by behaving rudely. Until one day…

Hunt on a cloudy autumn field. Dizzy flies clambering on an attic window. The action on the landscape and in the interior of an old watermill is connected in a strange way

A film about a man whose inspiration is himself. Not satisfied, he starts to create more diverse world; he starts thinking outside the box.

You need a 99 % work and 1 % talent, the birth of art.

Two girls stop their car to pee but the car rolls away from the road. A hero sees they need help and takes off to assist them.

Children are going to visit their grandmother, who lives near the sea. Two stag-beetles are having a romantic dinner. Both couples are in trouble until their ways intersect.

Sometimes life is like packed sardines – it is so narrow that you just can’t exist. You can only try to escape from that situation or try to hide yourself. This is how the protagonist of this film considers hiding in the mass of other people, where no-one can see him and where it is possible for him to be in peace.

The life of a Barn Swallow is not easy. Everything gets mixed up on the way back home from Africa, bigger birds are pesky, ghastly shadows from previous centuries annoyingly intrusive, the clay is all gone and the barn is locked at night.

This animation is a parody of a classical action film. The sequence of events is launched by a giant vegetable grown on the plot land that belongs to a poor Estonian woman. This super-cabbage soon attracts attention of America, China and Soviet Russia. Against a background of chasing and hunting two young people find their love.

Adults have labelled everything in this world good and bad, useful and unnecessary. Flies, for example, are an extremely boring and unpleasant phenomena, better to be killed off. Little Lilly has decided to stand up for the flies. She even presents a scientific treatise, arguing pro and contra. In protest against her father’s activities Lilly starts a hunger strike. 

Life proceeds according to its everyday routine on an isolated island in the middle of a sea of sadness. A burnt out violinist performs a tragicomic number with his dancer wife. And then a one-handed chair-man takes his first steps… toward a more humane future.

Primavera is a 3D family film featuring puppets that work in the so-called telescope system which tries with the help of stylised images to visually depict the great variety existing in nature, the food chain and variations in the reproduction of different living organisms. This is a love story in which the motifs of the “Ugly Duckling“ fairy tale can be discerned. The entire film is seen through the eyes of a butterfly larva.

The Year of the Monkey is a story of a monkey who lives in a zoo and, as chance would have it, is forced to start living like a human being. The monkey is mistaken for a drunken Santa Claus who got lost and ended up in the zoo, and he is taken away for treatment of alcohol abuse. Will the human society accept its new member?

A man dreams of a woman. The woman is, in turn, interested in someone else. The man abandons his attempts to attract the woman’s attention because he has discovered a new object of desire. The woman, in turn, becomes interested in the man. The man, though, is interested only in his new favourite, due to whom the man soon finds himself in danger.

The Adventures of Juku the Dog is the first Estonian experimental animated short film. About 5.000 drawings were made for the film, out of the total of 180 meters of film footage about 100 have survived. The soundtrack for the silent film was provided by Records of the Tormolen Co. Parlophon. The second film The Adventures of Juku on Earth and Water was not completed.

An original children’s series introduces the surrounding wildlife to young viewers through combination of puppets and wildlife, animation and shots on location. Junior Cameraman Click heads into the woods with his camera and learns about the world of mushrooms from his guide, the Wise Man of the Forest. This film and the others in the series illustrate the idea that nature is a great artist and the person who is blind to nature misses a lot. 

Satire that ridicules the unreasoned and impractical planning.

Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald’s allegorical satire Kilplased (The Gothamites) was first published in 1857. It has become a byword for activities that are seen as stupid, pointless. It is also applied to people who exhibit stubborn or thoughtless behaviour.

A short story about regular nails who show us various negative sides of human nature.

A film about ice and flame, the warmth of sun winning the fight over everlasting cool nothingness.

Second film about Klaabu in where main character and its friend Nipi meet angry fish and with the sense of humour will win the fight with big and angry fish. 

The film explores the deeper levels of transformation and contrasts the worlds of generations. A young boy’s ever-changing imagination is colourful like a butterfly collection, but at some point he starts imitating an old bureaucrat. To master the routine activities, he needs to become a consummate transformationist. We all lose something as we age.

While a train crosses the country, groups of different social backgrounds meet.

A tiny green bear tries his best to impress a group of animals with his annoying tricks, but somehow, always at the wrong time or place. The paranoid Soviet censorship saw a parallel between the bear and a free spirited artist who is not recognised by society, and so the film was immediately censored and had to be rewritten several times.

The cats go hunting for mice. But, they can’t see any mice and they fall asleep. The mice appear quietly and tie the lazy cats to the mouse trap and so they can have a funny ride.

This is a modern fairytale about a little atom-guy Athomic, who learns to use his mighty power on behalf of people. Based on Vladimir Beekman´s children´s book.

A little boy lives in the city, where, as it seems, is no place for him. Childrens' drawings are used in the film.

Miriam’s parents are not at home. She, her little brother and the Hen are watching swimming ducks on TV. As the Hen becomes jealous, Miriam decides to bathe him in the bathtub. This triggers a dangerous adventure which, luckily, has a happy ending.

A cat orchestra puts on a Concert for a Carrot Pie. Grandmother decides to bake a carrot pie and sends grandfather and their grandchild to the carrot patch to fetch them. While trying to wash mischievous drone flies, grandmother ends up in a crate floating in the middle of a lake. Grandfather and grandchild set about searching for grandmother…

Mummy, Baby Tiger and the Turkey Hens enjoy a merry, absurd time together, in a world where tigers are well behaved.

A Snowman with his carrot nose is escaping from the hungry Hare. In the whirl of the pursuit both occur on the stage of the theatre and in the wings of it pivotal events will happen. Together with a weird performance the chase will end and both leave the theatre richer than they could ever expect. Once you get to the stage, be prepared for more that you can guess!

Vincent is a seven-year-old boy obsessed with stories by Edgar Allan Poe. His imagination transforms any ordinary event of his life in a horrific scene ripped from the most horrendous horror. The first short film by Tim Burton and also a tribute to one of the horror films greats Vincent Price who also narrated the film.

A peculiar one-horse town in the middle of nowhere. A fanatical priest takes care of his God-fearing flock. Since time immemorial there is a rule that when an undertaker comes to town, it is an omen of coming death. And one undertaker is just on his way to Backwater. The people immediately know who to point finger at and whose fault it is.

A group of zombies attack a family and the only one who can face them is the maid. In an effort to save at least the father and the child she starts to brutally massacre the attackers. A bloody claymation film resembles the style of classical zombie massacres. The film has won several film festival awards and is immensely popular on youtube.

A disfigured woman, imprisoned of her house, must choose between a growing friendship for her husband’s mistress or her love for the unfaithful man...

The dark and scaryMutantLandis inhabited by strange creatures. When the sun sets, they go hunting. They need to get food in order to survive. High-quality CGI animated film has won several festival awards.

We see a city with a vast labyrinth. Day and night and sun and moon form a seemingly endless cycle. But the cycle suddenly ends and an eternal night descends on the city. Our hero enters the labyrinth and on his way to the centre he has to undergo three tests. 

Mommy puts little Tommy to bed but he decides to seek an adventure instead of sleeping. He enters a dark world behind his room’s walls where he meets terrifying clowns and monsters. He finally manages to escape. Or not? Graduate’s film by the students of Bezalel Academy of Art and Design.

The famous puppet debut of the brothers Quay is based on a short novel by Bruno Schulz. A bizarre world of dreams, images, puppets and dark rooms comes to life thanks to an excellent animation. The surreal story may remind you of Jan Švankmajer. Terry Gilliam selected the Street of Crocodiles as one of the top ten animated films of all times.

A mariner survives an attack from the demonical crew of the Black Freighter. He struggles to survive and save his family. He is accompanied only by his dead shipmates and his thoughts which become more and more insane. This short film is in fact a “comic book in a comic book” from the famous Watchmen movie by Zack Snyder, released on the bonus feature DVD.

Timmy’s bedtime has come. It is not easy for him when he knows that somebody is behind the door. Will Timmy find enough courage to face night terrors? Stop-motion animation with a surprising ending and a touch of humour.