settima

fantasy

Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny (Richard Winer + Barry Mahon, 1972)

Dec

20

Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny (1972)

A bunch of screaming children on top of a red firetruck stand right behind the driver, a stoic person in a pink bunny costume. DPs: William Tobin & Richard Winer.

“What is that? What is that I hear? Where's it coming from? I hear a siren, but I don't see any fire, I don't see any smoke. Whenever there's a siren, it means there's a fire, but I don't see any smoke. That siren. Where is it coming from? Where's that sound coming from?”

– Santa Claus

Die Puppe [The Doll] (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919)

Dec

16

Stupid Toy Day

Die Puppe (1919)

The doll (Ossi Oswalda) mischievously sticks out her tongue. DPs: Theodor Sparkuhl & Kurt Waschneck .

A ridiculous toy for Stupid Toy Day.

“She must have one complex mechanism!”

– Lancelot

Sedmi kontinent [Sedmý kontinent / The Seventh Continent] (Dušan Vukotić, 1966)

Dec

13

Francis Drake's circumnavigation

Sedmi kontinent (1966)

The first two children to set sail, with Iris Vrus on the right, and possibly Tomislav Pasarić on the left. DP: Karol Krška.

A voyage of discovery on the start of Francis Drake's circumnavigation. Children, ignored by their ever-busy parents, set sail to the Seventh Continent.

Tajemství hradu v Karpatech [The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians] (Oldřich Lipský, 1981)

Oct

27

1897

Tajemství hradu v Karpatech (1981)

A calendar – undeniably designed by the great Jan Švankmajer – with the date October 27, 1897, set on the day of – or referencing a saint – Sabina. Screenshot via DVDBeaver. DP: Viktor Růžička.

– You surely know that my financial support is unlimited.

– Yes. Long live your false cheque factories!

Иконостасът [Ikonostasat / The Icon Stand] (Christo Christov + Todor Dinov, 1969)

Feb

5

apples

Иконостасът (1969)

A closeup of woman's hand moving an apple. The black-and-white photography is deliberately out of focus. DP: Atanas Tasev.

Touha zvaná Anada [Desire Called Anad / Adrift] (Elmar Klos + Ján Kadár, 1968/1971)

Jan

21

salt

Touha zvaná Anada (1968/1971)

Semi-off screen, an older man with a moustache at a dinner table – many plates, glasses, and foods – reaches for a bowl of salt. DP: Vladimír Novotný.

Рождество обитателей леса (ca 1912)

Various beetles and a grasshopper rejoice around the Christmas tree materialised by Old Man Frost.

Рождество обитателей леса (ca. 1912)

December 25: a Santa for #Christmas

Pождество обитателей леса [Rozhdestvo obitateley lesa / The Insects' Christmas] (Wladyslaw Starewicz, ca 1912)

Father Christmas makes a Christmas tree for the people of the forest.

Дед Мороз (Ded Moroz, or Old Man Frost) is the Slavic version of Saint Nicholas or Santa Claus. An ornament depicting the old grey climbs down a child's (or doll's) Christmas tree and sets off to the forest where he plants his magic staff to create a Christmas feast for the woodland animals.

The word “animation” means “a bestowing of life“. Like his ancestor in the arts Bernard Palissy and the ancient winter solstice celebration of the return of light that long ago spawned Christmas, Wladyslaw Starewicz's Insects' Christmas breathes life into real but inanimate beetles, dragonflies, and frogs. The illusion is complete as you effortlessly forget they are painstakingly animated.

From me to you, a little Christmas treat

Director Wladyslaw Starewicz and his daughter Irina (Irene), surrounded by several of his tiny actors. Irina, writer and director in her own right, starred in her father's WW1 short “Liliya Belgii” [“The Lily of Belgium”] (1915).

Рождество обитателей леса (ca. 1912)

#Bales2023FilmChallenge #WladyslawStarewicz #Russia #fantasy #animation #ShortFilm #Christmas #holidays #StopMotion #insects #animals #1910s ★★★★☆

#todo

La Belle et la Bête [Beauty and the Beast] (Jean Cocteau + René Clément, 1946)

Nov

28

Giving Tuesday

La Belle et la Bête (1946)

The most beautiful flower, a rose, in La Bête's enchanted garden. DP: Henri Alekan.

Someone is given something special for Giving Tuesday (USA)

 

Just before leaving home for a business trip, a father asks his three daughters what he can bring them as a return gift. The eldest two ask for silly, extravagant things. A monkey! A parrot! The youngest simply wishes the most beautiful flower which the father finds in an enchanted garden, guarded by a terrible beast. And will pay for with his life unless he gives his youngest away to the beast, to die in his place.

– Can such miracles really happen? – You and I are living proof.

#Cocteau and Clément's La Belle et la Bête is of course based on Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve's fairy-tale, which on its turn was based on the classic myth of Cupid and Psyche.

Almacita di desolato [Almacita, Soul of Desolato] (Felix de Rooy, 1986)

Oct

5

National Caribbean Civility Day

Almacita di desolato (1986)

Desolato's village priestess Solem (Marian Rolle). DP: Ernest R. Dickerson.

Vampyr, ou l'étrange aventure de David Gray (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1932)

Sep

25

World Dream Day

Vampyr, ou l'étrange aventure de David Gray (1932)

Allan Grey (Julian West) sees himself in a coffin in a dream. DPs: Rudolph Maté & Louis Née.

“This is the tale of the strange adventures of the young Allan Gray, who immersed himself in the study of devil worship and vampires. Preoccupied with superstitions of centuries past, he became a dreamer for whom the line between the real and the supernatural became blurred. His aimless wanderings led him late one evening to a secluded inn by the river in a village called Courtempierre.”

– title card