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30 Jan – 9 Feb 2025

Quay Brothers

Identical twins Stephen and Timothy QUAY (1947, USA) were respectively educated in film and illustration at the art academy in Philadelphia and the Royal College of Art in London. Since the 1970s, they’ve been building on a dark, enigmatic oeuvre encompassing stop-motion films, but which also includes drawings, set designs and diorama boxes. Reflected in all these works is the brothers’ fascination for 20th-century Central and Eastern European culture.

Filmografie

Nocturna Artificiala (1979, short), Punch & Judy (1980, short), The Eternal Day of Michel de Ghelderode (1981, short), Igor – Chez Pleyel – The Paris Years (1982, short), Leos Janacek: Intimate Excursions (1983, short), The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer (1984, short), This Unnameable Little Broom (1985, short), Street of Crocodiles (1986, short), Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies (1987, short), Stille Nacht I (1988, short), Ex-Voto (1989, short), The Pond (1989), The Comb – From the Museum of Sleep (1990, short), De Artificiali Perspectiva or: Anamorphosis (1991, short), The Calligrapher (1991, short), Stille Nacht II (1991, short), Stille Nacht III (1992, short), Stille Nacht IV (1993, short), Institute Benjamenta or This Dream People Call Human Life (1995), Duet: Variations for the Convalescence of ‘A’ (1999, short), In Absentia (2000, short), The Sandman (2000, short), The Phantom Museum (2002, short), The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes (2005), Eurydice… She, So Beloved (2007, short), Inventorium sladow (2009, doc), Maska (2010, short), 2 Film Concerts – Ibragimova & Rudy (2012, performance), Unmistaken Hands: Ex Voto F.H. (2013, short), The Doll’s Breath (2019, short)

Quay Brothers at IFFR

  • Dormitorium

    The Quay Brothers are filmmakers, but they also work as graphic designers and create eccentric sets for the opera and dance world. The curious peepsho

    • Exposing Cinema

  • Duet: Variations for the Convalescence of ‘A’

    A beautifully portrayed choreography between a man and a woman, made more powerful thanks to the impressive music of Arvo Pärt.

    • main programme short

  • The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes

    Incomparably designed combination of animation and live action tells the bizarre story of the opera singer Malvina, who is killed and brought back to

    • Kings & Aces

  • The Sandman

    The dying E.T.A. Hoffmann is cared for by his dedicated nurse and doctor. Then a demonic character looms up from one of his own tales to finish the st

    • main programme short

  • In Absentia

    Inspired by Stockhausen’s Zwei Paare: the mental portrait of a woman who continues to write incessantly to her absent lover.

    • Roy Andersson focus

  • The Phantom Museum

    Random wanderings through Sir Henry Wellcome’s medical collection.

    • main programme short

  • 2 Film Concerts – Ibragimova & Rudy

    The Brothers Quay were challenged twice by classic soloists to create a counterpoint for a live performance. Inspired by Bartók and Janá

    • Signals: Sound Stages

  • Dream Pools & Collecting Holes

    With this unique, immersive installation the Quay Brothers introduce a number of motifs, images and objects from their film-in-the-making. Otherwordly

    • Frameworks

  • RE-ENACTMENTS, This Comb Does Not Work at Random (Hommage à Segundo de Chomón) El Hotel Electrico 1908, 2014

    The Brothers Quay constructed an octagonal scale-model with little mirrors, inspired by de Chomón’s animated short film, The Electric Hot

    • Nuts & Bolts

  • Stille Nacht V

    A puppet play filled with unabashed eroticism and rebellious repetitiousness. Fifth in a series of cinematographic enigmas.

    • What (is) Cinema?