Czech visual effects genius Karel Zeman blends live-action, miniatures, paintings, and stop-motion, in this rollicking marine adventure drawn from the novels of Jules Verne. Zeman’s Georges Méliès-esque visual effects conjure a proto-steampunk world that somehow replicates the look of 19th-century line engravings and inspired Terry Gilliam.

This film is screening in the current Adelaide Cinémathèque program and guest curated by Idris Kellerman.

Animation Transformed – Guest Programmed by Idris Kellerman from moviejuice

Where last year’s Animation in Transformation programme explored visual metamorphosis, this programme showcases how filmmakers have negotiated flatness in animation aesthetics as cinema is transformed by technological change, and how animation aesthetics have been transferred into live-action cinema. The four films in this programme all use flattened images and compositing to create fantastical worlds which foreground their artifice in different ways, with surprising aesthetic connections emerging across them.