12 and 19 Aug at 10:30 am
Summerhall (venue 26) / 1 Summerhall (EH9 1PL)
Tickets: £3/£2
Box office: 0845 874 3001
Duration: 50 minutes
Age restrictions: 7+
A selection of 6 animated short films features creatures great and small, real and imaginary. Join us for tales of lonely elephants, cheeky woodland dwarfs and cowboys on the hunt for gold
A still from Pan Słoń
Mr Elephant (Pan Słoń)
Teresa Badzian, 1960, 8 min
Mr. Elephant, created by the animation heroine Teresa Badzian, tells the story of a man who has trouble finding a job in the city. He tries to make it as a peddler, a painter, and winds up working in a china shop, before finally settling into a place where he feels best: a hammock among the trees. This animated puppet show brings to life the struggle between work responsibilities and the importance of enjoying life.
If You See a Cat Flying Across the Sky (Jeśli ujrzysz kota fruwającego po niebie)
Daniel Szczechura, 1971, 5 min
Designed as a children's film, this humorous, grotesque story is based on a sentence by Andrzej Krauze: "If you see a cat flying across the sky, don't be surprised – it's a cat who likes birds."A film about longing for the unattainable.
A still from O krasnalach i krecie
Dwarfs and the Mole (O krasnalach i krecie)
Alina Maliszewska, 1961, 10 min
A charming and light-hearted tale of small forest creatures and critters, living in the midst of garden of mushrooms, flower lillies, and wild strawberries. Disaster strikes the forest creatures when they grow angry at the sluggish mole, who has decided to teach them a lesson. But at some point, the mole will need the little critters' help – should they turn their backs on him?
A still from Był sobie raz
There Once Was (Był sobie raz)
Walerian Borowczyk and Jan Lenica, 1957, 8 min
An animated film with cut-outs and cartoons, made using the simplest graphic means: geometric figures made of coloured paper, together with a collage of figures cut out from old magazines. A play with form subordinated to deeper subtexts.
A still from Przygoda w paski
A Striped Adventure (Przygoda w paski)
Alina Maliszewska, 1960, 10 min
The hero, or rather heroine of this short film is played by an elephant. Because of her different looks, other uniformly-coloured herds look at her with reserve, keeping a cold distance. Luckily, the unhappy and lonely heroine meets someone just like her. A pair of elephants, one with vertical stripes, the other with horizontal ones, befriend each other. This children's story speaks of the need for diversity and acceptance within society.
A still from Mały western
Small Western (Mały western)
Witold Giersz, 1960, 5 min
This animation is the first western film painted by Witold Giersz directly onto the celluloid negative. Arrays of cowboys and horses create a surprising and brilliant parody of the western genre. The animation is dually intriguing: the viewer not only witnesses a fight between good and evil, but also the process of creating a world on film. Completed in 1960, award-winning Small Western, is the first original work in the history of Polish animation film, twhere the director and screenwriter, as the same person, took special care and patience to develop this piece of film artwork.