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In the early 1980s, world-renowned filmmaker and classic of Hungarian animation Marcell Jankovics, the author of such films as Sisyphus (1975) and the three-hour-long opus The Tragedy of Man (2011), made the fascinating feature film Son of the White Mare. The film has recently been deservedly digitally restored. As is his custom, Jankovics attacks the senses of the viewers. He fiercely uses his incredibly sweeping style of vivid animation lavish with numerous metamorphoses and his film is anything but static and minimalist. Almost forty years after its premiere, Son of the White Mare is still a breath-taking colourful spectacle. Its fairy-tale fantastic story is based on old legends of nomadic tribes. A mare gives birth to a human boy with supernatural powers. His task is to set out on a journey full of dangers and enemies and save three princesses. The child will fight giants, monsters and prehistoric creatures. As for the film’s artistic style, Jankovics used deep colours and strikingly stylised drawing influenced by Hungarian ornamentalism. The visual aspect therefore pulsates and transforms itself into various patterns. Together, the Hungarian National Film Archive and the Los Angeles distribution company Arbelos Films have breathed new life into the film which we can now enjoy in 4K definition.

Jan Werich’s Fimfárum is an anthology film composed of five not-so-fairy-tales but rather moralities on human vices. Directed by Vlasta Pospíšilová and Aurel Klimt, these five stories connected by Werich’s voice create a compact film. It has been nearly twenty years since the premiere of this film. It has slowly left its place in modern Czech cinema, acquired a status of Czech classic and has now been restored and digitalised. The process started with rewriting the original intermediate negative which formed the original video master. The colour corrections were overseen by Aurel Klimt and in the most important phases also by cinematographer Zdeněk Pospíšil. Some matters were also discussed remotely with cinematographer Vladimír Malík. The most demanding and time-consuming process was removing imperfections and restoring the damaged film stock. The authors took into consideration the viewers and in spite of the opinion of film historians, they removed various technical mistakes as well (animation lines, hair in the frames, light differences in individual shots, forgotten objects in scenes). “From my point of view, the result has the best possible quality which could be achieved by using modern technical equipment, and I would like to wish you a very pleasant experience when watching our film in the cinemas eighteen years after it was first screened,” says Aurel Klimt to the festivalgoers.