Title of the course: Histories and Contexts of Animation Films in the V4 countries from 1900 to present.  (The common ground of animation art in the V4 countries)

Coordinator, host lecturer: Brigitta Iványi-Bitter dr.

Provider of the course: MOME, Media Institute, Animation department

Class format: lecture with Q and A session

Eligible students: regular enrolled students of MOME, all Erasmus students at MOME are also eligible.

Language: Hungarian/English

Credits to be received within the course/program: 4 credits

The course will be held from 16 to 20 March 2015.  Course will be held every day from 10 am to 3 pm.

General Course Description

Want to know more about the secrets of Mézga Family, Lolek and Bolek, or Bob and Bobek? Want to understand the connections between Polish, Hungarian, Czech and Slovak animated films?

This course is designed to facilitate a greater understanding of the relationship of V4 countries and their cultural production and more precisely to the culture of animation films. One might ask, why these countries are to be compared?  Since the beginning of the 20th century these countries went through a very similar history, so did their film history, which evolved with many parallel phenomena. Although this is still not enough to make an international course interesting. The real exciting aspect of the topic is that in these countries a surprising number of outstanding talent emerged, not only pushing their own national film production to a new level, but also influencing the animation industry globally. Think about authors such as Lenica, Ribczinsky, Svankmajer, Halas, Jankovics and a long list of others, who changed the industry wherever they have been working. Where did they come from? What is their legacy? How are these authors connected? What were the secret behind their magic? And how does this secret is connected to the special identity of the artists living in the Visegrad countries?

The animation film production of the Visegrad countries especially during the Cold War era brought about lifeworks, genres, styles and approaches which became internationally acknowledged.

This course focuses on the history of animation films produced in the Visegrad countries (Hungary, Polnad, Czech Republik, Slovak republic) in a way, that the young generation can approach it, can feel closer to it and can bridge the gap between the visual culture of the past hundred years and today.

The main goal is to provide students with new perspectives with which to evaluate old and new issues of regional culture, also to inspire them to make creative contribution to this cultural production. We believe that through this course we can support the continuity of this outstanding regional legacy in the age of the growing popularity and importance of animation films.

We will explore the region's animation films from special research point of views. We investigate the aspects of gender issues, women artists, social sensitivity, children as audience and as subjects of the films, stereotypes and representation of social exclusion as well as backstage dilemmas of adapting literature to moving image.

Supervisor of the course: József Fülöp DLA, Media Institute director

The course is supported by the International Visegrad Fund (IVF) VUSG program.