I recently learned that renown and meat-centric Czech filmmaker, Jan Švankmajer has returned to Milwaukee in the form of a week long retrospective of some of his best and most popular work. His style of mixing stop motion animation with live action has influenced such other mixed media filmmaking greats like Tim Burton (Nightmare Before Christmas), Terry Gilliam (Monty Python), and The Brother's Quay (Street Of Crocodiles). I would be surprised if Michael Gondry (The Science of Sleep) isn't included in that list as well.

We've already missed the opportunity to see a series of his shorts, but there is still much more available. Alice, Little Otik, Conspirators of Pleasure, Faust, and Lunacy (easily the best film I've seen all year).

The best part about it (not counting the work itself, of course) is that the UWM Union Theatre is putting on this show for free, which is especially nice considering I had to pay $9.00 to see Lunacy only a few short months ago. At that price it was totally worth it and I probably would have paid upwards of $15.00 if I had to, so being able to see any of these films for nothing makes this un-missable chance to see work that is both utterly unique and extremely inspiring.

Click the link below to get the complete schedule from the OnMilwaukee Event Calendar.