Presented in cooperation with the British Film Institute and The Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, with special thanks to Ian Christie, acting director, The Film Center, for programming. From Starewicz to George Pal, the tradition of puppet animation is probably stronger in Eastern Europe than in any other area of the world, which may explain why two American graphic artists, Timothy and Stephen Quay (alternatively spelled Quaij), in their fascination with East European surrealism, were drawn to puppetry. After studying filmmaking at London's Royal College of Art in the 1970s, the Quay Brothers produced their first independent film, Nocturna Artificialia, before joining forces with English writer-producer-director Keith Griffiths to form Koninck Studios in London, which has produced an astonishing wealth of puppet and collage animation. "Eclectic, inventive, poetic, shocking--the Atelier Koninck defies neat classification.... (They) display a formidable technique at the service of genuinely subversive fantasy. They create a closed world where obscure rituals and perverse desires are acted out with compelling logic, raising puppet animation to a new level of artistic achievement...(and breathing) new life into tired surrealist techniques." Ian Christie