The Pied Piper is set in a medieval town: a gothic never-was world where greedy townsfolk (carved out of woodblocks) hunger for gold and eerie cobblestone streets overflow with rubbish. The rubbish brings rats, thousands of “real” rats. When a piper leads the vermin away, the townsfolk reward him not with praise but disdain and thus seal their doom.

With its combination of puppet animation, and ornately designed oil-painted backdrops, Jiří Barta’s The Pied Piper, based on the Middle Ages folktale, and caught somewhere between the worlds of Caligari and Švankmajer, deserves its place among the classics of Czech animation.

The Pied Piper will be preceded by Jiří Barta’s 1982 short film The Vanished World of Gloves (Czechoslo-vakia, 16 min). Restored in 2023 by Deaf Crocodile, in collaboration with Krátký Film Praha.

World premiere: 39th Cannes Film Festival

This screening is dedicated to the Zika family milestone of 75 years in Australia.