Emma Calder

Secrets of British Animation

Sebastian Barfield

Peter Lord, David Sproxton

BBC Four’s new documentary takes us on a journey through more than a century of animation. It examines the creative and technical inventiveness of some of the great animation pioneers who have worked in Britain – trailblazing talents such as Len Lye, John Halas and Joy Batchelor, Joanna Quinn, and Bristol’s world-conquering Aardman Animations.

The Animated World of Halas and Batchelor

Richard Shaw

Энди Серкис, Peter Lord

The story of married animators, John Halas and Joy Batchelor. A Jewish emigre from Hungary and a working class woman from Watford, England, John and Joy fell in love, created cartoons that helped the allies to win the war, and produced the first feature-length animation in British cinema history, Animal Farm (1954).

Roger Ballen's Theatre of Apparitions

Ged Haney, Emma Calder

An animated theatre of dismembered people, beasts and ghosts, dance, tumble, make love and tear themselves apart, a nightmarish subconscious world, in black and white.

The Queen's Monastery

Emma Calder

Inspired by Leos Janacek's Sinfonietta, The Queen's Monastery is about a woman whose lover, a former acrobat, has returned to her from war a changed man. Using a highly individual watercolour technique the narrative explores themes of love, escapist fantasy, obsession and guilt.