Imaginative and inventive, poetic and incisive, Czech animation has captured an international audience since the late 1940s. In three delightful programs, we present a tribute to Czech pioneers in animation Jirí Trnka (1912–1965) and Jirí Bárta (born 1948). If Trnka's puppet-animated films developed from his career as a children's book illustrator (he is often dubbed the Walt Disney of Europe), in no way are these shorts just for kids: an early film offers a parody of the German occupation; his swan song is a nightmarish allegory on artistic freedom. “Anything can be made to move, anything can be played with” is the motto in Bárta's films. He animates virtually any material, from paper cutouts to firewood and walnuts. Don't miss The Pied Piper, an epic puppet animation in which Bárta retells the German legend with Gothic wit.