Docufilms.com ^®

Using a variety of camera and graphic techniques, this unique animated documentary traces the development of animation as an art - and commercial - form in Germany. The camera roams through a surrealist archive, with animated file drawers that open to reveal the stories and films of such artists as Hans Richter, the noted surrealist, and Walter Ruttmann, whose Berlin, Symphony of a City, started the documentary "city poem" movement. Towering above the rest of them is the brilliant Oskar Fischinger, whose marvelously animated musical shorts influenced Norman McLaren, and inspired Walt Disney to make Fantasia. In a near encyclopedic approach, director Gockell finds the time to survey the accomplishments of lesser-known, but exceptional talents like Peter Sachs and Oskar Fischinger´s younger brother Hans. Moving from the heady days of the Weimar Republic through the Nazi period and into the post-war era with its divided German states, Muratti & Sarotti demonstrates that an art, once envisioned, can survive any political regime.