The Dryden will screen a program titled A Star from the Start featuring a selection of short films of Jiri Trnka from 1945—51 including Grandpa Planted a Beet (Jiri Trnka, Czechoslovakia 1945), The Animals and the Brigands (Jiri Trnka, Czechoslovakia 1946), Springman and the SS (Jiri Trnka, Czechoslovakia 1946), The Gift (Jiri Trnka, Czechoslovakia 1946), Romance with Double Bass (Jiri Trnka, Czechoslovakia 1949), and The Golden Fish (Jiri Trnka, Czechoslovakia 1951) as part of the Animation of Jiri Trnka series.

This program of six witty, offbeat short animations, culled from the early part of Trnka's career, demonstrates his mastery of multiple forms of animation, such as hand-drawn images, collage effects, and stop-motion puppets. The program includes: Grandpa Planted a Beet (1945), Trnka's first film; The Animals and the Brigands (1946), a Cannes prize-winning folktale; Springman and the Ss (1946), a Max Fleischer—like anti-Nazi lampoon; The Gift (1946), a surrealist mini-masterwork; Romance with Double Bass (1949), an adaptation of a Chekov short story; and The Golden Fish (1951), a wryly humorous fairy tale.

[source: George Eastman Museum calendar, 2018-Sep-3]