A nuclear awareness fan-film satire, from 1984, synced to “Life During Wartime” by the Talking Heads, created as an expression of dismay on that era’s trigger happy leaders. It traveled the world among like-minded films a generation ago, with recognition in Portugal, Tunis, Brazil, and around the US. The MPD awarded it the “Bill Barton Animation Film Award” in 1985.
Category: Animation
The protagonist of this psycho-thriller taking place in picturesque surroundings is a crazed station-master living in a dull village in the middle of nowhere. In both visual and audio forms, the suffocating short effectively juxtaposes the sunlit, peaceful landscape with the lunatic ramblings of the deranged man gradually rising to a wheezing roar. Post-impressionist static idylls and genre pictures of brilliant tones are counterpointed by nervously pulsating sequences moving at warp speed. This first short made by Tibor Bánóczki as a student of the animation department comprises oil paintings on cel sheets.
A young boy strays through a wrought-iron gateway into an overgrown garden filled with insects and birds. Amidst the sculptures of Antiquity, he glimpses a mermaid-like woman in a wheelchair and begins to follow her. The film consisting of engraving-like drawings is a surrealistic coming of age tale played out on the boundary of this world and the realm of myths.
The film made for the centenary of the birth of poet Endre Ady is set in the golden age of peace before the outbreak of the First World War. By depicting the silence preceding the suffocating storm at the beginning of the century, the director expresses the public mood of his own time in impactful animated images.
Péter Tímár, visionary developer of a unique filmmaking perspective in his graphics and effects period, directed this short in the experimental film group of Balázs Béla Studio, in which he investigates human sight through five topics: anatomy, photo-sensitivity, contour, refraction and resonance. The result is a fascinating experimental film packed with cinematic reflections far removed from scientific demonstration and didactic intent.
The film’s artistic premise seeks a plastic equivalent to express the literary content of Gilbet K. Chesterston’s prose. It is a graphic film showing the metamorphosis of a tree, the main character of the film. It is predatory and dangerous to the nature around it. It catches and feeds on birds, which, suspecting nothing, live among it.
An animated urban tabloidshort about late socialism in the Kádár era, based on interviews with passersby. Its title, which combines the words “report” and “portrait,” features exclusively talking heads and offers an overview of the living conditions, opinions, and plans of Budapest residents of different backgrounds and ages during the János Kádár era.
“The Chair” by Daniel Szczechura is a brilliant animated political satire depicting the timeless mechanism of the struggle for power. In a monumental hall, a meeting is underway – one seat at the presidential table remains empty. The candidates, shown from a bird’s-eye view as abstract, moving figures, compete ruthlessly, using tricks and underhanded tactics to win the titular chair. The film, made using cutout animation techniques, suggestively employs graphic simplicity, irony, and distance.