Shooting Animals

Poisson

Étienne-Jules Marey & Georges Demenÿ, FR/IT 1891, 3 min

The film shows seven short motion studies of fish and rays having been filmed in Naples. These very early recordings of Étienne-Jules Marey rank among the first shoots of animals in film history.

The Cameraman's Revenge

Wladyslaw Starewicz, RU 1911, 14 min [Piano]

A rhinoceros beetle cheats on his wife with a dancer, the dragonfly. In the process, he rather ungently gets rid of his love rival, a grasshopper. But the grasshopper is a cameraman and films the secret rendezvous, filled with thoughts of revenge. While the beetle is sitting in the cinema with his wife, he is forced to see, horrified, how his misdemeanour is made public on the screen. What ensues is a scuffle during which the insect cinema is set ablaze. The film was animated with real but dead insects as protagonists.

Dog Duet

William Wegman, USA 1975, 3 min

In Dog Duet, the head movements of two Weimaraner define the imaginary space in front of and behind the camera.

Obitateli / Inhabitants

Artavazd Peleshyan, UdSSR 1970, 10 min; Aus dem Archiv der Internationalen Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen

An experimental documentary film in the Cinemascope format. The film follows the tradition of the many animal films in the Soviet provinces, but unlike them leaves out people completely. The animals here are not working or domestic animals, and the film does not link them with people in any way. They are the inhabitants of the planet.

Donkey with Snow

Romuald Karmakar, DE 2010, 4 min

A still life from Lower Bavaria. It is snowing. We see the donkeys Bianca and Ugo along with the sheep Ole, named after a Norwegian cross-country skier. Their stable is part of a car repair shop. W. Wiesner, the garage boss, was given his first donkey when a customer was unable to pay his repair costs.