The Puppet Master: The Films of Jiří Trnka
Screening Dates
  • July 26, 2018 6:30
  • July 29, 2018 6:30
New Restoration

Trnka’s magical puppet work brings a treasure trove of Bohemian myths to life in this folkloric hymn to the Czech land, history, and people, now newly restored by Czech National Film Archive. Based on a tome by the ​“Czech Sir Walter Scott” Alois Jirásek and on the famed medieval chronicle written by Cosmas of Prague, it illustrates seven fabled historical episodes, including the settling of an Edenic ancient Bohemia, the tale of an all-female revolt led by a cast-out princess, and the legend of a weak-willed king whose passion for gold nearly destroys his kingdom. It all culminates in a breathtaking climactic battle sequence—a tour de force of editing, music, and stop-motion (employing more than 70 figurines) that plays like puppet Kurosawa.

In Czech with English subtitles.

The Gift
(Dárek)
Czechoslovakia 1946
Jiří Trnka, Jiří Krejčík
15 min. DCP

Trnka reached new heights of modernist abstraction with this innovative, surrealist mini-masterwork, which critic Jean-Pierre Coursodon praised as the Citizen Kane of animation.

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