On the planet Ygam, the Draags, extremely technologically and spiritually advanced blue humanoids, consider the tiny Oms, human beings descendants of Terra's inhabitants, as ignorant animals. Those who live in slavery are treated as simple pets and used to entertain Draag children; those who live hidden in the hostile wilderness of the planet are periodically hunted and ruthlessly slaughtered as if they were vermin.
A darkly brilliant stop-motion adaptation of The Pied Piper of Hamelin about a plague of rats that punish townsfolk corrupt with greed. One of Czechoslovakia's most ambitious animation projects of the 1980s, notable for its unusual dark art direction, innovative animation techniques and use of a fictitious language.
A human body gradually reconstructs itself as its various component parts crowd themselves into a small room and eventually, after much experimentation, sort out which part goes where.
Animated short film based on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum" and Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's "A Torture by Hope".
Little Rehor isn't allowed to play with the other boys. His only friend is the girl next door, Luci. Rehor's father is doctor on a boat and he has sent Rehor a package with butterfly larvae. When they hatch he discover a fairy who can do magic tricks.
Three surreal depictions of failures of communication that occur on all levels of human society.
An adaptation of the 1764 work of the same name, the first Gothic novel. In this mockumentary, the amateur archaeologist Dr. Vozáb has set to prove that the supernatural ghost love story takes place not in Italy, but in Otranto Castle near Náchod in Czechoslovakia.
The story is a celebration of the cleverness and wit of the simple peasant Čupera, who triumphs not only over the demon of alcohol, but also over the bureaucratically persistent and thorough devil. The hell that the farmer goes through during the withdrawal process is stylized as a shantytown, a galley with a prison and a dehumanized night club.
Short movie by Bretislav Pojar
One of the film stories based on the old Prague legends. This one is about the old master clock maker Hanus who construed the Prague Old Town astronomical clock. Master Hanus' clock started working for the first time in 1490 but did not tell the time for too long. Soon the master, blinded by the perfidious town councilors, stopped it for more than 200 years.
Using an array of gloves in different styles and from different historical periods, the film is a short history of the cinema - from silent movies via pastiches of Buñuel and Fellini and Close Encounters of the Third Kind to a futurist junkyard where tin cans become animated police cars in a city of urban decay.
The picture, unlike the other film adaptations of the story, focuses much more on Crusoe’s life before and after his stay on the island. Following the principle of setting the novel right, it describes Crusoe’s experiences with delicate irony and understanding.
A behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of Barta’s masterpiece.
Happened in Prague on a cold February evening, 1917: the poor violinist's atrium runs out of coal and his dancing mouse becomes ill. The coal bucket is empty, and without sparing any effort, the faithful bucket rides its master through the air towards the home of the carbon trader...
Cartoon tennis match, with players based on Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe.
A parable about a thwarted dream. A narrator tells us about a young woman who wants, more than anything, to be a ballerina. Thanks to animation, we see the problem: her legs make up about three-quarters of her height. She sees the impossibility of her dream and moves to a house on an isolated hill where she lives by herself, lonely, practicing her art, and then, in near despair, taking up knitting. Madness seems close at hand, but is there anything that can bring hope and pull her from her solitary, circumscribed life?
