THE MAGIC OF FILM PUPPET
Puppet animation, animation of objects, clay animation and other variations from the extensive spectre of stop-motion animation techniques – every each one of them will be the focus of this year’s AniFest. We will look at the magic of film puppet from authorial, technical as well as production point of view.
An unforgettable personality of this animation field is Jiří Trnka
– universal artist, who would have celebrated 100.anniversary this year. We will screen his film from original 35 mm copies, the selection of them curated by the historian Michaela Mertová from Czech National Film Archive and accompanied by various lector’s presentations. An exhibition in the Teplice museum will focus on the process of creating of Trnka’s films and their puppet protagonists.
In the contemporary puppet production, one country excells recently – United Kingdom. AniFest thus invited famous historian and theorist Paul Wells and asked him to prepare a special programme dedicated to British stop-motion animation. His selection will be divided into three thematical units mapping the developement of British stop-motion animation from 1908 till today. The actual and contemporary face of British animation will be presented by the expected feature film from the Aardman studios.
An unique part of this year’s puppet AniFest and British animation profile will be the double-programme of the honorary president Barry Purves (Screenplay, Achilles, Hamilton Mattress). 
A selection of his author puppet films will be accompanied by a lecture on his inspiration sources and Purves will also reveal the „backstage“ of his films by showing some very rare shots documenting the creation of his work.
Also other festival guests will give lectures on the broad possibilities of puppets, for example Will Vinton (Academy Award for „Closed Mondays“), who reached perfection in clay animation and thus created his patented technique of clay-motion. Contemporary Czech puppet will be presented by director and designer Michal Žabka (Mrs. G). Špela Čadež, our Slovenian juror (Lovesick) will also talk about her non-traditionally designed puppets.
Not only puppet films but also their designers and developers will be present at AniFest. Representatives of world famous studios promised to come: Polish SE-MA-FOR (where films of such authors like brothers Quay, Suzie Templeton or Marek Skrobecki are produced), British MacKinnon & Saunders, creators of Tim Buton’s, Barry Purves‘ or Wes Anderson’s puppets, Laika studio, where Selick’s Coraline was born and French company Sophie Roze, responsible for succesfull Joska’s Snails.
Magic of puppet
Hundred years has gone since the artist, who evokes magic with the variety, significance and style of his work, was born in Pilsen…but, besides the magical influence he had on the developement of film puppet, the greatest amount of magic is in the enlivened material. Up untill our time, you can find this magic only at a few places…
Great Britain and its puppet magic: Barry Purves, Suzie Templeton, Aardman Animations…no one else can explain this better than Paul Wells (and he´s already used to celebrate Czech masters of animation with us, remember AniFest 2010?)
During our magical journey, we´re going further and further north through the Baltic region and saying hi to Antanas Janauskas, Nijolé Valadkevičiuté, Vladimir Leschiov, Signe Baumane and all other friend we met while traveling there…and no, we´re not heading to Russia. The closer we are, the more we regret that our Baltic mission is about to end this year.
