Help me find this animation

November 30, 2006 5:49 PM

AnimationFilter: Yet another help me find a book/movie/what ever, sorry. The main premise was a guy in a prison who made shadow puppets with his hands to help "escape" his surroundings. The authorities make him stop by cutting his hands off. It has made me sad ever since. I would love to find a copy. of course..

It was a, maybe 5 min long animation I saw about 10 years ago. I *belive* it was Hungarian or maybe some other Eastern European country.

posted by ShawnString to media & arts (6 comments total)

I've seen this one. No words, unfortunately so nothing to google.

He's locked up, released to work, locked up again. Repeat until death.

The ending has him making shadows with his feet. Good, but depressing.
posted by unixrat at 6:32 PM on November 30, 2006

I've seen this too, and was deeply marked by it. Sorry, I can't help you find it either, but I can confirm that it was Eastern European (not Hungarian, however), and it played on either HBO or Showtime.

(If you do find it, please post here and spill the details, because I'd love to get a copy too.)
posted by war wrath of wraith at 7:45 PM on November 30, 2006

I was able to find this, and they don't provide much info, but it might be a good starting point.
posted by haplesschild at 8:30 PM on November 30, 2006

Short Stories, Vol. 1
Maybe this it, unfortunately it's out of stock at the moment.
posted by lemhuxley at 9:57 PM on November 30, 2006

By Googling a few key words, I wonder if the short animated film you are seeking might be "Ligne de Vie" (Line of Life) by Serge Avedikian.

"A working camp. Executioners and victims. A stopwatch to measure the speed of hard labour. A prisoner surpasses himself. He wins and dies. Another one replaces him. He makes drawings secretly. A warden comes to draw with him. They're caught by surprise. The warden is hung. The prisoner 's hands are cut off. He draws his last drawing on a wall, the line of life. He dies for that."
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posted by namret at 11:27 PM on November 30, 2006

Not OP here, but as an interested party (see above) I'll say that it's neither the Chuck Gamble nor the Serge Avedikian, IMO. Not Gamble because it was not computer animation (plus 1993~1994 could be too recent), and not Avedikian because story, while similar, doesn't match (no warden, no drawings, just shadow hand puppets on wall of prison cell).

Now it's really driving me nuts.
posted by war wrath of wraith at 12:27 AM on December 1, 2006