Online catalogue

The latest film by Frédéric Schuld, whose previous film Carlotta’s Face (2018) was screened at more than 200 festivals, is again an ani-doc. Schuld was inspired by a cruel practice that used to be the norm in England: small children were used as human chimney sweeps despite a very high risk of often tragic injuries. The result is a disturbing film revealing a practice that is almost forgotten today.

A man and a woman assure each other that they’re happy, but the film shows an entirely different thing: a portrait of the gradual, irreversible disintegration of their relationship. While their apartment is flooded with water, the confines of their bodies fall into decay and there is no longer any difference between pain and pleasure. The film’s metaphoric images are underlined by suppressed colours, disturbing sounds and surrealist spectacles.

This ironic film with a fitting point and elements of psychological drama follows the story of a young man named Guillaume who unexpectedly and openly resorts to murder. While serving his sentence, which acts as a probe into life in prison, the young man forgets why he killed his friend Horacio. But that changes when he regains his freedom.

This refreshing film was made by the renowned Japanese filmmaker Atsushi Wada, who is known for his trademark style and sense for the humorous yet at the same time rather unhinged behaviour of his characters with an emphasis on instincts and corporeality. This time, the film in which we watch the synchronised exercise of a dog and his owner is an inconspicuous study of a dog’s body.

This extraordinary Mexican experiment uses a combination of cutout and computer animation.

According to the official description given by the Central Committee, this is a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist revision of the Allegory of the Cave, filled with talking animals who are arriving late and bourgeois queens who would like to see you without your head, just like Plato intended.

Croatian director Lucija Mrzljak studied animation at several schools abroad (including Prague) but eventually settled in Tallinn, where she now works in the famous Eesti Joonisfilm studio. Inspired by the Estonian weakness for absurd situations and hard-to-grasp phenomena, which entirely organically become parts of the heroes’ dailiness, and drawing with simple lines, she made a captivating film about relationships and the longing for freedom.

A scene from a family dinner which is anything but idyllic. For many years, a son sits at the table with his parents, listens to their well-intentioned advice and eats food so good he wants to throw up. Overcome by relentless repetition of words and sentences, prejudice and hypocrisy, trapped in an endless loop, his mind wanders off. For her collage-like film, the director chose a theatrical style reminiscent of musicals.

The first collaboration between the prominent British director Joana Quinn and the Canadian NFB resulted in a film starring the director’s favourite tragicomic character Beryl, an ageing factory worker obsessed with drawing. Scenes depicting her childhood, family relations and artistic efforts are full of specific humour and entrancing exaggeration. And as is typical for the director, the film boasts an unmistakeable and vivid animation style.