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Quay Brothers
Tapping into a sense of early 20th-century Europe that is a place of dusty nightmares, folkloric paraphernalia and crumbling institutes filled with the dispossessed.
Enter the spooky, surreal and sepia-tinted world of the Brothers Quay.
A mainstay of British animation for forty years, the Quays have conjured a singular style over an incredible body of work that has been highly influential, and much imitated.
Drawing on traditions of surrealism, expressionism and Eastern European animation, their films conjure indescribably strange worlds of abstract mechanics and anatomical experimentation.
Masters of puppetry and stop-motion, the Quays also utilise drawn animation and even the occasional actor in their works, such as in their mostly live-action feature, Institute Benjamenta.
Begin exploring their remarkable realm with selection of key works.
Street of CrocodilesStreet of Crocodiles
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1986 21 minsDirector: Brothers Quay
The Quays' best-known (and highest budgeted) short takes place in nightmarish netherworld populated by strange and sinister puppets.
Institute Benjamenta Institute Benjamenta
Drama 1995 105 minsDirector: Brothers Quay
Mark Rylance stars in the debut feature film from the Brothers Quay. A student at a peculiar school for servants gradually uncovers its secrets and, by extension, those of life itself.
The Phantom MuseumThe Phantom Museum
2003 12 minsDirector: Brothers Quay
The Quay Brothers' partly animated exploration of the Wellcome Trust's medical collections.
The CombThe Comb
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1990 18 minsDirector: Brothers Quay
A woman dreams of a fairytale landscape populated by ladders and sinister puppets.
In AbsentiaIn Absentia
Animation & Artists Moving Image 2000 20 minsDirector: Brothers Quay
The Brothers Quay's visualisation of a piece by Karlheinz Stockhausen. A woman alone in a room repeatedly writes a letter with tiny broken off pieces of pencil lead. Outside her window, vistas of ever-changing light register her every emotion.
Nocturna ArtificialiaNocturna Artificialia
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1979 21 minsDirector: Brothers Quay
The debut film from the Brothers Quay follows a dreamer who's seduced by the mystery of the city at night. He leaves his room and goes into the street, where a tram-car carries him away.
This Unnameable Little BroomThis Unnameable Little Broom
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1985 11 minsDirector: Brothers Quay
The Brothers Quay take on the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh, presenting the character as a childlike figure who sets a series of vicious traps to catch Enkidu, the guileless forest creature.
The Cabinet of Jan Ε vankmajer The Cabinet of Jan Ε vankmajer
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1984 14 minsDirector: Brothers Quay and Keith Griffiths
An intricate, multi-layered exploration of the aesthetic and philosophical aspects of Ε vankmajer's animated films.
Rehearsals for Extinct AnatomiesRehearsals for Extinct Anatomies
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1988 14 minsDirector: Brothers Quay
Beautiful near-abstract black-and-white animation inspired by the work of painter Jean-HonorΓ© Fragonard (and his anatomist cousin HonorΓ©).