Castle of Otranto (1977)

Original title

Otrantský zámek

Directed by

Jan Švankmajer

Genre

short film, animated film, docufiction, live-action/animated film

Country

Czechoslovakia

Runtime

17 min

Rating

6.9 of 10 from 18 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

A documentary-style frame shows a man reading Horace Walpole's novel. Cutout animation in a gothic art style presents a shortened version of the story.

experimentalsurrealdarkwhimsicalslow-pacedarchivalbookishuncanny

What happens

Castle of Otranto (Czech: Otrantský zámek) is a 1977 Czechoslovak animated short film by Jan Švankmajer. It is based on Horace Walpole's 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto. The film takes the form of a pseudo-documentary live-action story, with an abridged adaptation of the story itself presented in cut-out animation in the style of Gothic art. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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• More like this film, on a shelf you can walk up to.It's the lit case on the top shelf.