Step-by-step to Creating Stop Motion Feature Film

Case Study Even Mice Belong to Heaven

The feature-length animated film “Even Mice Belong to Heaven” (dir. Jan Bubeníček, Denisa Grimmová), created with puppet technology, had its world premiere last year at the prestigious Annecy International Animated Film Festival. Our webinar will take a look behind the scenes of the film’s production. In particular, we will follow the journey from the artistic design of an object or space to its actual realization. There will also be a lecture on the production of the puppet part of the film, its artistic and technological concept, the preparatory work in the studios, and the filming.

It will be followed by a presentation focused mainly on the combination of puppet film with elements of computer graphics, space and animated characters.

Jan Bubeníček is a graduate of the Department of Animation at FAMU (prof. Břetislav Pojar, Pavel Koutský). He was the director of the animation studio Eallin (together with Nor Držiak, David Súkup, Tomáš Luňák and Martin Duda). He worked in post-production at UPP as head of the 3D department and VFX supervisor. Currently he works as an animation director and forms a directing duo with Denisa Grimmová. He is the curator of the exhibition Worlds of Czech Animation. His filmography includes the short films “Na draka”, “Hurrrááá na pinceznu!!!” (both 1997), Ludvík’s Patrol (1998), Three Foos (2000), Pirate (2002), Death Stories (2016) and the feature film Mice Belong to Heaven (2021).

Jan Kurka is a graphic designer with nearly fifteen years of experience in film post-production. He is currently working as a DMP (matte painting) supervisor at Magiclab post-production studio. He has worked on a number of Czech and foreign films such as The Angry Man, Aladdin, Masaryk, Without a Trace, The Clockmaker’s Apprentice, The Last Race and Mice Belong to Heaven.

The event is organized in cooperation with the Film and Television Faculty of The Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava – VŠMU.

CEE Animation Experience is supported by Creative Europe MEDIA and the International Visegrad Fund.