Blood Tea and Red String

"Blood and water, round and round, Beneath my skin and underground"

A group of aristocratic white mice commission an oak-dwelling craftsman to make them a doll in the form of a girl. Infatuated with his creation, the craftsman decides to keep the doll and return the money, but the mice are not happy...

Can it be that we've saved the best until last? This film is a marvel. Made over the course of thirteen years as a labour of love by California-based animator Cegavske, Blood Tea and Red String belies its torturous production history by creating a fully-formed and entrancing world quite unlike anything you've seen before. The stop-motion struggles of these mute woodland creatures may put you in mind of bygone children's shows like the Moomins or Clangers, but with sinister undercurrents and vivid surrealism that Lynch or Svankmajer would be proud of. Every outfit is hand-stitched, every pebble and twig artfully placed. www.christianecegavske.com