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Samizdat 2025 Opening event. Ani-Masters: Pioneers of Czech Animation

Tuesday 30 September 2025
18:00 19:45

Glasgow Film Theatre (Cinema 1) 12 Rose St Scotland, G3 6RB United Kingdom (map)

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With a recorded introduction from Pavel Horáček, programme director of Anifilm, the largest animation film festival in Czechia

Wheelchair accessible | English and descriptive subtitles | £9 (concession) / £11.90 (full price)

If the ticket or other costs, such as childcare or transport, make this screening unaffordable, please see details of our Audience Access Fund.

One of the most renowned film traditions globally, 20th century Czech animation is known for its craftsmanship, political and social subversiveness, and often surreal storytelling. In this instalment of our ever-popular animation series, we focus exclusively on the works of several Czech ‘Ani-masters’, exploring this rich and imaginative landscape by taking the viewers on a five-decade-long journey through its many wonders and marvels.

We begin with the abstract short Fantaisie Érotique, doubling as both an experimental work of colour animation and a soap ad, representing the earliest stages of Czech animation. Along the way, we chart the many rich and imaginative worlds conjured by these ani-masters: a local Czech vigilante fights off the SS in Springman and the SS; a wayward blue apron goes on a surreal adventure with their paper-plane companion in Blue Apron; European civilisation faces extinction in the Bruegelian masterpiece Turris Babel.

Content notes: nudity, depictions of Nazism

Access notes: flashing colours and lights, loud noises

Co-curated by Andrew Currie and Heather Bradshaw

Afterwards, join us at Stereo for Samizdat’s Opening Night Party, with music brought to you by SUGO: think Euro Dance, Italo Disco and retro, infused with sounds from Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Caucasus, and all-around good vibes – from 8pm until midnight. Free and unticketed.

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