Wladyslaw Starewicz

The godfather of stop-frame animation

At the library theatre, Birmingham Central Library

"This is where it all began" - Terry Gilliam

A very rare chance to see the work of this pioneering animator, on celluloid. Archivist and writer Dennis Nyback presents a special 16mm programme of shorts which takes us from early insect fantasia The Cameraman's Revenge (1912) to the jaw-dropping Fetiche (aka The Mascot, 1934). Just as Len Lye started out wanting to make his doodles move, Starewicz (who anglicised his name to Starewitch after moving to the USA) was the director of a natural history museum in Kaunas who wanted to show stag beetles fighting. In the process he invented puppet animation, and made a splash whose ripples can still be seen in the work of Gilliam, Burton, the Quays and Svankmajer.

A co-promotion with Birmingham International Film Society.

Some W.S. links:

Wikipedia entry

Senses of Cinema article on The Mascot

AWN mini-site