In April and May, the Cinematheque rooms receive the work of Jan Švankmajer, the Czech animation giant known for his surrealist works. The retrospective is organized in collaboration with the 20th edition of the IndieLisboa festival, which this year takes place between April 27th and May 7th.
Born in Prague in 1934, Švankmajer is known for his stop motion animation works with puppets, which would later influence the work of other directors. Passionate about puppetry from a very young age, Švankmajer deepened his passion by studying this art at various renowned art schools in his home country.
In 1958 he began to work in cinema, collaborating on the short film JOHANES DOKTOR FAUST, by Emil Radok, an animation inspired by the character of Doctor Faust. In the same year, he starts collaborating with several multidisciplinary theater companies, work that will allow him to gain experience to return to cinema in the following decade, when he begins to sign in his own name several short films whose trademark is the stop motion technique used in Surrealist stories that usually involve food and objects that take on a life of their own and the exaggerated use of sound.
With a work little known in the West, which Jan Švankmajer was only aware of in 1983, when the Annecy Festival dedicated an important retrospective to him, the director has maintained a regular production over the last few decades, especially in the field of short films. But his work is also made up of feature films using a mixed animation and real image technique, where he created a universe where stories like Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll, characters like Faust or the work of authors like Edgar Allan Poe or the Marquis de Sade.
A universe between revulsion and fascination, with a touch of sadism, that Cinemateca and IndieLisboa will show throughout several unmissable sessions. Accompanying the retrospective, Jaromír Kallista, the Czech director's usual producer, will be in Lisbon.