Chris Lavis - The Evolution of Cinematic Puppetry

13/06 SAT 12:00 MM CENTAR

For millennia, puppets have had a magical ability to command our attention, but what is their future in the age of AI? For over two decades, filmmakers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski have dedicated their lives to presenting puppets on screen. For them, stop motion animation and puppetry is not a nostalgic art, but an ever-evolving medium, pushed forward by digital innovation even as it remains grounded in the past. In this masterclass, director Chris Lavis will examine the evolution of cinematic puppetry as it relates to Lavis and Szczerbowski’s newest film, The Girl Who Cried Pearls. The filmmaker will discuss aspects of their previous shorts, including Madame Tutli-Putli, Higglety Pigglety Pop!, Cochemare, and Gymnasia, and how the challenges of those films helped to inform and inspire their latest work. Lavis will explain how the techniques, ideas, and aesthetics of the Girl Who Cried Pearls gave them a new understanding of the power of puppets to convey emotion and illuminate a story.