The original 54-minute documentary, as broadcast by Channel Four on 20 June 1984, after which the animated links by the Quay Brothers were recompiled as a separate short.
Budget: 0
This technically quite well-made cartoon from pre-war Nazi Germany is a commercial (or propaganda piece) for Volksempfänger ("people's receiver"), inexpensive radios. First we see agricultural statistics: the far-away village of Miggershausen is quite below standards in milk and egg production. An anthropomorphic radio undertakes the long voyage by express train, steam train, hay carriage to Miggershausen to advertise its services. It is not well received. Then, it collects and leads an army of radios to try again. They flood all the farmhouses and seem to be more convincing that way - at day, they spread agricultural knowledge to bring milk and egg production up to standards; later, they just play music and illustrate how various people enjoy various kinds of music.
Their last dinner before he leaves to join the Army. The reality of the situation begins to break in through the four surrounding walls.
"The Cailleach was dependent on this one thing... every hundred years she must get back to the water and immerse herself so that she might become young again." This film is an interpretation of fragments of the ancient myth of the "cailleach", old hag, otherworld female, mother earth, sovereignty queen, or witch. Told using a large scale puppet and actors moving through real landscape.
An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.
Xiao Hei, a little carp, jumps over the bridge pier and gets cheers from his four friends. His grandma says that he is capable only if he can jump over the Dragon Gate like his ancestors did.
The story is about two city boys who spent their summer holidays in a village where everything is so unusual and new. Here all the wildlife is at a glance: both large and small beetles, which can sometimes land right in the soup, and a real turtle that hides in its house from danger, and an apricot that gives ripe fruits similar to a small sun. And there is also an interesting place — the attic, where you can find a lot of old things. But soon the summer will end and mom will take the children back to the city...
