Stephen Quay

Documentary looking back at the making of the music video for the Peter Gabriel single 'Sledgehammer'. Involving interviews from various crew members along with Peter Gabriel. Including a restored 4K version of the iconic music video.

In 2015, Christopher Nolan curated a selection of short films by the surrealist animators the Quay Brothers to be distributed as a touring 35mm presentation. The three films—"In Absentia" (2000), "The Comb" (1991) and "Street of Crocodiles" (1986)—were accompanied by this brief portrait of the brothers at work in their London studio.

Told in the form of a mock documentary in 92 short parts, nineteen million people are left obsessed with birds and flight following a strange occurrence. A documentarian analyses the lives of all the survivors whose surnames begin with FALL to uncover the truth behind the event.

Explores some of the most innovative attempts by contemporary artists, filmmakers, architects etc to explore multiple Temporalities and to counter the uniform sense of time promoted by our technology-driven society.

A display at the strange and wonderful artifacts in a collection of medical curiosities.

Guy Maddin, who has been nicknamed the Canadian David Lynch, is undoubtedly one of the last remaining Magi of cinema. Despite living in the middle of the digital age, this heretical director hailing from the snowy plains of Canada has spent 25 years transposing the uncommon and the uncanny onto screens over-saturated with naturalistic imagery. A lover of primitive cinema, he has cunningly summoned the light-and-shadow techniques and experimentations of the Golden Age of film to resuscitate a unique cinematographic language which plays with the spectator’s unconscious by means of visual trickery as disturbing as it is absurd. In an attitude as playful at that Maddin’s films this documentary follows the mediumistic experiments of this master of illusion, filmed during the ‘’spirit’’ shootings he presented in Europe.

The Bug Trainer explores Starewitch’s creative ideas and concepts of his work, along with opinions from film critics and other animation directors to help us understand why he is considered one of the greatest creators of the animation world.

Docimentary about the work of the Qway Brothers for their film Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life

One of the best Czech composers of film soundtracks is often described as a genius of film scores. He was not afraid to experiment and the timelessness of his work is proven by the admiration of the world, including the generation who came to know his music only after his death.

An Interview with The Quay Brothers & Alan Passes April 2006 at Atelier Konick, London

This short documentary documents the making of the film the Quay Brothers shot at, and on the subject of, the Mütter Museum of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the first film the internationally-known filmmakers have made in the U.S.A.

Jozef embarks on a journey via a ghostly train to visit his dying father in a remote Galician sanatorium. Upon arrival, he discovers that the sanatorium exists in a realm where time is distorted—his father's death has not yet occurred, as time here lags behind the outside world by an undefined interval. Jozef's experiences become increasingly fragmented and dreamlike as he confronts various manifestations of his father, each representing different aspects of their relationship and his own psyche.

Jozef embarks on a journey via a ghostly train to visit his dying father in a remote Galician sanatorium. Upon arrival, he discovers that the sanatorium exists in a realm where time is distorted—his father's death has not yet occurred, as time here lags behind the outside world by an undefined interval. Jozef's experiences become increasingly fragmented and dreamlike as he confronts various manifestations of his father, each representing different aspects of their relationship and his own psyche.

Jakob arrives at the Institute Benjamenta (run by brother and sister Johannes and Lisa Benjamenta) to learn to become a servant. With seven other men, he studies under Lisa: absurd lessons of movement, drawing circles, and servility. He asks for a better room. No other students arrive and none leave for employment. Johannes is unhappy, imperious, and detached from the school's operation. Lisa is beautiful, at first tightly controlled, then on the verge of breakdown. There's a whiff of incest. Jakob is drawn to Lisa, and perhaps she to him. As winter sets in, she becomes catatonic. Things get worse; Johannes notes that all this has happened since Jakob came. Is there any cause and effect?

Jakob arrives at the Institute Benjamenta (run by brother and sister Johannes and Lisa Benjamenta) to learn to become a servant. With seven other men, he studies under Lisa: absurd lessons of movement, drawing circles, and servility. He asks for a better room. No other students arrive and none leave for employment. Johannes is unhappy, imperious, and detached from the school's operation. Lisa is beautiful, at first tightly controlled, then on the verge of breakdown. There's a whiff of incest. Jakob is drawn to Lisa, and perhaps she to him. As winter sets in, she becomes catatonic. Things get worse; Johannes notes that all this has happened since Jakob came. Is there any cause and effect?

In the Renaissance castle of the Polish count - Jan Potocki - in Lancut, the modern traces of a past glory persevere and become visible again at the tones of Krzysztof Penderecki's music and Brothers Quay's imaginary animation.

Afraid of losing his wife, Horatio creates a replica he calls Hortensia. But things don't go as planned... Shot on 35mm and propelled by an impressive score by Michèle Bokanowski, the Quay Brothers evoke an intense drama of jealousy, betrayal and murder, revolving around a window dresser's obsession for a life-sized doll.

Dark fairytale about a demonic doctor who abducts a beautiful opera singer with designs on transforming her into a mechanical nightingale.

Dark fairytale about a demonic doctor who abducts a beautiful opera singer with designs on transforming her into a mechanical nightingale.

Commissioned by Opera North, the Brothers Quay created the installation and film 'She, So Beloved' inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem ‘Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes.’ The Orfeo myth is re-told through a combination of art forms; film, dance, music and visual art contained within a contemporary staged installation to provide an intimate sensory experience.

A porcelain doll’s explorations of a dreamer’s imagination.

A porcelain doll’s explorations of a dreamer’s imagination.

Stop-motion animated short film in which a puppet on a trike captures a puppet bird-man.

Stop-motion animated short film in which a puppet on a trike captures a puppet bird-man.

The movie is set in a technologically developed but, at the same time, feudal world. Beautiful Duenna was created in order to carry out certain mission. However, she will be forced to choose between accomplishing the task she was created for and love.

The movie is set in a technologically developed but, at the same time, feudal world. Beautiful Duenna was created in order to carry out certain mission. However, she will be forced to choose between accomplishing the task she was created for and love.

A magnet moves on a floor. A moth beats against a window. A doll child watches the magnet; threads of metal filings gather around the magnet.

A display at the strange and wonderful artifacts in a collection of medical curiosities.

A farming family and their livestock dance during a much-needed downpour in this Quay Brothers short made for Sesame Street.

With harpsichord music in the background, a dandy, seated at a table, plucks a quill pen from a ceiling full of them above him, dips it in ink, thinks, then draws a straight line down the page in front of him, out of which sprout six more quill pens, each held by a hand. The calligrapher moves all the hands and pens in unison, drawing an elaborate feathered wing, which comes to live, peeling off the page, and, now a quill pen, slips in to his hand. He tucks it behind his left ear.

One of several collaborative dance films by the Brothers Quay & (dancer, choreographer) William Tuckett. Little enough info around on line, but there's briefly by way of Wikipedia entry. Adapted rather loosely from the works of the E.T.A. Hoffman. Familiar Quays' tropes, much in evidence: automata, trompe l'oeil effects, etc. No credit on the sound design (which is fairly elaborate), tho' that is possibly Larry Sider.

A puppet, newly released from his strings, explores the sinister room in which he finds himself.

A puppet, newly released from his strings, explores the sinister room in which he finds himself.

Near an extraordinary chair with many legs, a hand is visible gripping an edge. The hand is weathered, the fingers cracked and scarred. The end of a rifle appears and a shot fires. The bullet is visible whirling through space; it caroms and then goes through a pine cone. A long spoon emerges from a drawer in the chair and stretches toward the hand. The bullet is on the spoon. Later, the hand holds the bullet between two fingers; another shot is fired.

A documentary on the subject of the collections of books, instruments and medical anomalies at The College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the Mutter Museum housed there. This short film represents the first to be made by the internationally recognized Quay Brothers in the United States. While not a stop-motion animation film, a form for which the Quays are best known, the entire film is vibrantly constructed and 'animated'. Musical score by composer Tim Nelson and voice-over provided by Derek Jacobi.