The Persistence of Animation

Autobiographical elements in animated films of Czech female directors

Abstract: In my paper I analyse and discuss autobiographical elements in short animated films of several contemporary Czech female directors. The paper employs data that I obtained from in-depth interviews with individual directors. As the main methodological tool for conducting these I used oral history. These data are further combined with the gender-specific textual analysis and interpretation of their films. I focus on identifying possibilities, advantages and disadvantages of theory-practice inter-relating research. In doing so, I point out useful methodological overlaps of only seemingly distant disciplines such as gender studies, oral history and animation studies.

Biographical Statement: Eliška Děcká (born 1982) is a Film Studies MA program student at the Film Studies Department, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. She is currently working on her MA thesis, which is entitled “Autobiographical Elements in Animated Films of Czech Female Directors.” The thesis is part of her 3-year research project, “Female Heroines in Animated Film,” which is funded by the Charles University Grant Agency. She writes on animation for various Czech film and cultural journals and works with the Czech animated festival Anifest, where she is a member of the film selection committee. In 2008, she also collaborated as a dramaturge for the animated films section ofthe Femina Film Festival.

Animating shifts in consciousness: live action and animation in Jan Švankmajer’s Faust and Alice

Abstract: If it is animation’s frequent job to express the metaphysical, and to transform reality, it follows that where animation is combined with live action, it affects and transforms the reality of the live action. The proposed paper draws on psychoanalytic film theory to probe the interaction between the two media in the work of Jan Švankmajer. Focusing on two of his feature films, I will home in on points of transition between live action and animation, setting these against comparable shifts in more mainstream films.

Biographical Statement: Meg Rickards is a lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Cape Town, and a writer-director. She has published articles on anime directors Hayao Miyazaki and Satoshi Kon, and her PhD thesis investigates ways whereby filmmakers and animators can convey a character’s thoughts and emotions on the screen. Her co-written screenplay for an animated feature, Zinzi and the Boondogle, is in development, and in 2008 she was commissioned to write animation scripts for a UNICEF campaign in southern Africa. In 2007 she wrote and directed the mini-series and tele-feature Land of Thirst for the South African Broadcasting Corporation.