A happy little potter is approached by a huge hand which wants him to sculpt its statue. The potter refuses, wanting nothing more than to be left alone with his only friend, a potted plant. As the hand's request gives way to bribery, demands, and threats, the potter becomes more desperate to escape its clutch, leading to tragedy.
A small, animated figure learns how to use a whip, a pair of wings and a house.
Two puppets, Punch and Judy, do battle to the death over the custody of a live guinea pig.
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 Jiří Trnka's work and a milestone in the history of the world animation.
Trnka’s sci-fi vision of the future in which machines and robots try to substitute themselves into the most beautiful human relationships. A cybernetic robot is supposed to substitute for the loving grandmother of a little girl. The wise grandmother, however, comes back and the girl finds the warmth of her grandmother’s loving arms again. Trnka’s artistic ideas in this film can be described as both poetically fragile and dramatically cautionary.
A musician is playing his music to some animals, when a hungry lion shows up.
The third episode of the series "Hey, Mister, let's play", in which the heroes are two bears, one foxy and the other naive. In this episode the big bear out-smarts the small one by convincing him that the fish he caught is a spellbound princess.
Taken from Boccaccio's Decameron, this lovely puppet film tells the bawdy story of the beautiful young Venetian lady who confesses her sinful passion for the Archangel Gabriel to a lustful monk, who promptly impersonates him in her bedroom with predictable results. Amidst the film's ribaldry, the hypocrisy and false piety of the monk are mercilessly mocked.
Animated story of a sad magician
An old woodblock train meets its shiny new electric replacement one Christmas Eve in this glowingly nostalgic stop-motion toy story, directed by Bretislav Pojar and featuring gorgeous design by Trnka.
Adaption of the Antonin Dvorak opera Čert a Káča (The Devil and Kate), Op. 112, B.201, based on a farce by Josef Kajetán Tyl.
Bad moods, denial and constant resentment are spreading like an epidemic, gradually transferring from the individual to the entire society.
The passion for high speed can nowadays almost be seen in the new-born. The film shows that such passion, if not controlled, is self-destructing and even suicidal. At least this is the way Trnka presents it in this satiric story. —kratkyfilm.cz
Pilot of the series "Hey, Mister, Let's Play". The story of two bears, the older one is experienced and sly, the younger is naive and gullible. This is the story of how they met in the Czech town of Kolín.
This melancholy piece about the metamorphoses of love and the eternal dissatisfaction of human beings with what they have was inspired by the lyrics of the French song "Plaisir d'amour."
