ALICE

Alice sits in her room surrounded by toys and reads Lewis Carroll's story, which transports her, too, into a Wonderland

Jan Svankmajer, the Czech master of animation, has fulfilled a lifetime ambition in this personal interpretation of Lewis Carroll's 'Alice in Wonderland' Svankmajer's Alice remains true to the absurdity of Carroll's original, but hears the stamp of Svankmajer's own distinctive style and obsessions Thanks to his vision, and his play with the combined techniques of animation (puppets and objects) and live action (the young girl Alice), this classic tale of childhood fantasies acquires a new and fascinating dimension Zuzana Pnncova of the Bristol Animation Festival writes "Alice... acknowledges its debt to Lewis Carroll... but [it's] far more than just a version of the proto-surrealist story Familiar themes of magic, cruelty and childhood are explored by young actress Kristyna Kohoutova and a cast of beautifully animated and sinister puppets '

Not a young child's film, Alice will be of interest to grown-ups, 10 and over.

"My film's message is quite simple I want to draw attention to the dream as reality In our society it has no significance, it's considered a mere waste-product of our psyche.

As long as we fail to resume our telling of fairy tales and ghost stories before bedtime, and our dreams when we are awake, we can expect nothing more from our modern civilisation ' - Jan Svankmajer.