One morning, as kids are stealing apples from an old man’s orchard high above a seaside town, an earthquake hits. No one is hurt, and the townsfolk are non-plussed, but the old man is agitated: he alone is aware of the imminent tsunami and tries to warn the village. Based on a classic Japanese fable, The Orchard was made by one-man band Bob Stenhouse, who had been nominated for an Academy Award the previous decade for pioneer tale The Frog, The Dog and The Devil. Fans of the animator will recognise his lush, luminous hand-drawn style.
Shirou has lost his Servant, Saber, and is no longer a Master in the Holy Grail War. Despite this, he refuses to leave the battle, determined to protect Sakura. Meanwhile, a mysterious shadow engulfs the city, killing Masters and Servants one by one. As Shirou faces new dangers, Sakura is drawn deeper into her own destiny as a mage.
Emanuele Luzzati was a talented artist, director and animator. One of his best known short films was 1978’s The Magic Flute set to the music from Mozart’s two-act opera. As a stage director, Luzzati had mounted a lavish 1963 full-scale production of the opera and fell in love with the music and the story. His animated The Magic Flute, made fifteen years later, was met with glowing reviews and multiple awards. He followed the completion of the film with a children’s picture book that succinctly retells the story. (by Joseph Crisalli)
Join the Minstrel Show on the farm where animals show their talents. The audience asks for something from the seller. Watch for the gag where he uses his mouth to carry the items on sale. Follow the bouncing ball to sing "Camptown Races."
ALEXANDER THE GRAPE, an unfinished cut-paper animated short from Jim Henson from 1965, relates the fable of a young grape with big ambitions who learns that it is better to accept yourself than to try to be something you are not. The short was reconstructed from film and audio elements; images from Jim’s storyboard fill in missing segments of the animation.
The film investigates the adventures of mountain climber and photographer Adam J. Winkler, who fought in Afghanistan with the Mujahideen against the Soviets in the 1980s. The director employs a highly original artistic technique involving animated collage of period materials.
The film is about a child's fantasy that can create a wonderful world of imagination. In an original artistic form, he introduces children to the alphabet in visible, visual images, touching on education, touches on the problem of relationships between adults and children.
Every evening, Brindone, a teenager, goes to bed before the end of the TV programs. Every evening, instead of going to bed discreetly, his big brother Musclor turns on the light in their shared bedroom to annoy him. Every evening the same routine. Brindone can't take it anymore.
In a gentle adaptation of Megume Nagata's book Flowers Wait for the Moon, a girl grows up, falls in love, and becomes a mother, realizing that her childhood is now forever behind her.
Pluto has just finished moving his bones into a spiffy new doghouse when a turtle comes along and starts moving them out. While Pluto is dealing with the turtle, Butch takes up residence. Butch chases Pluto back to his grungy old doghouse, and now it's his turn to deal with the tenacious little turtle. The turtle wins, and he and Pluto become friends.
A girl heading home from school is met with a bigger version of herself who poses arbitrary challenges with unspeakable consequences. The little girl tries to keep up but suddenly the stakes are raised.
A darkly comedic travelogue of the underworld - set against an all-too-familiar urban backdrop of used car lots, gated communities, strip malls, and the U.S. Capitol. And populated with a contemporary cast of reprobates, including famous - and infamous - politicians, presidents, popes, pimps. And the Prince of Darkness himself.
While a reception is being prepared for the Queen, a baby feeds from a bottle of milk, restores vigor to the schoolboy doing his calculations, to the blacksmith who's working his iron, to the runner who is getting tired. At last, she is crowned before the ball, with bottles of milk.
One day, a boy who separated from his mother’s hand is deprived of his fingers. His fingers become a larva and part from his hand. The house. . . conceal[s] a relationship between the two from anyone. How does the boy who is deprived of his fingers grow up?