Theatre optique — celebrating 120 years since the first animated film projection

In 1892, French inventor Charles-Émile Reynaud introduced in the Musée Grévin in Paris his Théâtre Optique – a revolving device projecting a series of pictures which, perceived by the human eye, create an illusion of movement, or in other words, animation. It was one of the first projections for a bigger audience. October 2012 marks the 120th anniversary of this event and we would like to commemorate it during the upcoming edition of Anifilm in May. We are preparing a selection of the most interesting early Czech and foreign cartoons and the visitors can also look forward to operating the device themselves! The selection is prepared in collaboration with the National film archive that has on the occasion of its 75th anniversary published a book called Czech animated film (Český animovaný film) which comes with a DVD containing films that will be shown during the programme.