One Song

The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer

1984

In Prague, a professorial puppet, with metal pincers for hands and an open book for a hat, takes a boy as a pupil. First, the professor empties fluff and toys from the child's head, leaving him without the top of his head for most of the film. The professor then teaches the lad about illusions and perspectives, the pursuit of an object through exploring a bank of drawers, divining an object, and the migration of forms. The child then brings out a box with a tarantula in it: the professor puts his "hands" into the box and describes what he feels. The boy receives a final lesson about animation and film making; then the professor gives him a brain and his own open-book hat.

Anamorphosis

1993

The Quays' interest in esoteric illusions finds its perfect realization in this fascinating animated lecture on the art of anamorphosis. This artistic technique, often used in the 16th- and 17th centuries, utilizes a method of visual distortion with which paintings, when viewed from different angles, mischievously revealed hidden symbols.

In Absentia

2000

A woman sits alone on a chair at a table in a room on one of the top floors of an asylum. Bright spot lights dot the night, sometimes shining on her window. She sharpens pencils and writes on a page in a copy book. The pencil point often breaks under her fingers' force. She places broken points outside the window on the sill. A satanic figure is somewhere nearby, animated but of straw or clay, not flesh. She finishes her writing, tears the paper from the pad, folds it, places it in an envelope, and slips it through a slot. Is she writing to her husband? "Sweetheart, come."

Abigail

2005

As the gap between a burning airplane and the ground gets smaller, one passenger has other things on his mind!

The Story of King Midas

1953

A greedy King Midas is visited one day by a mysterious visitor who grants him the ability to turn all things he touches to gold. He learns his lesson when the food he tries to eat and his own daughter are turned to gold as well. The visitor reappears and offers him the opportunity to return to his old self, which he gladly does. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2004.

The Summit

1995

Two men seek to negotiate an agreement of international significance.

The Rotten Fruit

2000

An animated band comprised of foul mouthed fruit.

Ghiblies

2000

Ghiblies, a totally different look on the staff of Studio Ghibli as they go through life, work on new animation projects, office jokes, off the wall events, and deciding what to have for lunch.

Imaginary Flying Machines

2002

Kuso no Sora Tobu Kikaitachi (Imaginary Flying Machines) is a 2002 Japanese animated short film produced by Studio Ghibli for their near exclusive use in the Ghibli Museum. It features director Hayao Miyazaki as the narrator, in the form of a humanoid pig, reminiscent of Porco from Porco Rosso, telling the story of flight and the many machines imagined to achieve it.

Invocation

2013

While filming a Teddy Bear in stop-motion, a man accidentally unleashes supernatural dark forces. A short horror film by Robert Morgan

The Great Rabbit

2012

Once we called the noble, profound and mysterious existence The Great. We have moved with the time, our thought and consciousness has changed. And yet what makes us still keep calling it The Great?

Dragonslayer Quark

1987

Cartoon short about Quark the troll, this time as a dragonslayer by chance.

Madagascar, a Journey Diary

2010

Filmed like the travel journey of a Western traveler in search of Madagascar's customs. The pages turn, the drawings come to life, and the luxuriant landscapes of Madagascar appear one after another.

Locomotion

1989

Stille Nacht III: Tales from Vienna Woods

1993

Near an extraordinary chair with many legs, a hand is visible gripping an edge. The hand is weathered, the fingers cracked and scarred. The end of a rifle appears and a shot fires. The bullet is visible whirling through space; it caroms and then goes through a pine cone. A long spoon emerges from a drawer in the chair and stretches toward the hand. The bullet is on the spoon. Later, the hand holds the bullet between two fingers; another shot is fired.