The Gift

The first puppet kinescope in the world. It is based on the famous poetic comedy by William Shakespeare. Three worlds meet in this story: the noble world of three Athens couples, a common popular world of tradesmen amateur theatre and a fairy-tale happiness of magic creatures as elves and nymphs. The film is considered the most remarkable Jirí Trnka's work and a milestone in the history of the world animation.

Hurvinek cannot go to a circus because he injured himself when sliding down the stair rail. He daydreams that he is an acrobat riding a scooter and an animal-trainer taming beasts. (MUBI)

A barrel organ grinder meets the devil on a mysterious moonlit night in this haunted-house fable, which showcases Trnka’s atmospheric use of sound to conjure a macabre mood.

The first Czech cartoon based on a fairy-tale about grandpa, grandma, their granddaughter, dog and cat who all wanted to pull a big beet out from the ground. The picture shows children that a big task can only be fulfilled by joint effort.

A poor fisherman catches the golden fish that promises him to fulfil three wishes if he sets her free again. He does so and the fish fulfils two of his three wishes. However, she refuses to fulfil the third one, the last one in which the fisherman’s wife wants to be equal to God.

Two mischievous frost spirits make things chilly for a pair of travelers in this wintry comic folktale.

The first animated picture made by Jiří Trnka for adults. It is a comic story of a legendary chimney-cleaner who, with the help of a spring from an old lounge-chair, became the terror of the Prague occupation SS troops in World War II. —kratkyfilm.cz

Adapting Jaroslav Hasek's raucous satirical novel, and also bringing Josef Lada's equally famous illustrations to garrulous puppet life, posed Trnka one of his biggest creative challenges. Trnka himself felt that the final episode was the most artistically successful, but there's much to enjoy in all three, not least the way that the lackadaisical layabout Svejk's own self-serving anecdotes are realized through cut-out animation.

During the Nazi occupation of a Czech city civilians are being rounded up on the slightest of pretexts and shot. One day three high school boys who crack jokes about a recently deceased "hero of the Reich" are pulled out of school by the Gestapo.

Comedy based on short Sean O'Casey play. John Jo Mulligan finds himself in a situation with which his pious conscience cannot cope. He has spent a night with the cunning seductress Angela. Full of remorse and dreading the ruin of his reputation, he tries to get rid of her, fearing that his pal Halibut or his landlady Miss Mossie might get to know. Angela sees her chance, turns gold-digger and does not leave before relieving John of a considerable amount of money.

Czech comedy fantasy directed by Jiri Krejcik et al.