Kawamoto the Puppet Master: Screening Details

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    Dark Dreams in Plasticine 15

    Dir: Various, 1hr 30 mins

    The ghoulish Grand Guignol grotesquerie of British animation comes up for review in a series of nightmarish visions from the country's top talent, including classics from Oscar winning filmmaker Suzie Templeton, Peter Lord and bolexbrothers’ Mike Booth and Martin Davies, alongside new works by Joe Tucker, Natalie Ann Hinchley and Chris Randall.

    Keep in a Dry Place and Away from Children

    Dir: Martin Davies, bolexbrothers, UK 1997, 10 mins

    Chained to his cot, wings confiscated at birth, Ike is a creature of the kitchen, half baby, half duck; but with every deranged dribble he comes closer to becoming more like the swan on the matchbox of his desire. With music by Pram.

    Adam

    Dir: Peter Lord, UK 1992, 6 mins

    In this BAFTA and Academy Award-nominated short, Aardman Animations co-founder Peter Lord imagines the stop-motion animator as god and his clay creation as his put-upon, often unruly subject.

    The Animal Book

    Dirs: Natalie Ann Hinchley & Chris Randall Second Home, UK 2007, 10 mins

    Two sisters exist in a threatening world of giant machinery; a city of cog-mechanized buildings, where even the sun is a giant light bulb and the moon a stud-riveted mirror. When a snatched retreat to the sisters’ broken playground is interrupted by a flying book, one of them is offered an opportunity to escape for a better life.

    Little Dark Poet

    Dir: Mike Booth, bolexbrothers, UK 1998, 5 mins

    Love, lust, guilt and disgust explored through a mixture of stop-motion animation and live action techniques, as an animated poet watches his work come to life in a live-action setting.

    For the Love of God

    Dir: Joe Tucker, National Film and Television School, UK 2007, 11 minutes

    Graham lives with his tyrannical Mother and their pet Jackdaw in a Christian bookshop, trapped in the seedy outskirts of a decaying nowhere town. He and his Mother both love God… but in very different ways. Will Graham consummate his unholy fantasy, and can it live up to his expectations?

    The Man in the Lower-Left Hand Corner

    Dir. Rob Morgan, UK 1997, 14 mins

    An old man looks at a photograph of himself, taken many years ago. Surrounded by death and decay, he decides to try and recreate the happiness he once felt.

    The Separation

    Dir. Rob Morgan, UK, 3'10 mins

    The separation of conjoined twins and its extraordinary consequences...

    The Cat with Hands

    Dir. Rob Morgan, UK, 1'04mins

    The story of a cat who, legend has it, longs to become human.

    Stanley

    Dir. Suzie Templeton, UK 1999, 7 mins

    While his frustrated wife wreaks violence and death in the kitchen, Stanley finds life and love in a beautiful cabbage he is growing in his barren back yard.

    Dog

    Dir. Suzie Templeton, UK, 1'06 mins

    A young boy longs for reassurance about how his mother died. To protect each other, he and his father hold their agony inside, where it festers.

    The Saint Inspector

    Dir: Mike Booth, bolexbrothers, 1996, 5 mins

    A higher being in a state of pious bliss endures the attentions of a meddling official, in this surreal short from Bristol’s very own bolexbrothers’ studio, the creators of The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb.