Katariina Lillqvist's puppets evoke fear and fascination

The faces of the refugees of the Bosnian war are reflected in the puppets of the Country Doctor animation from 1996. Terror and apathy are also present in the other two parts of Lillqvist's Kafka trilogy.

Before the Velvet Revolution the whole Kafka issue was forbidden.

New winds started blowing with the change of the teaching staff in the Prague Film School. According to Lillqvist recent interview the change that resulted was outstanding: suddenly Kafka appeared in T-shirts and mugs.

Charming saint of horse drivers

Now the animator Lillqvist is working on a new project in Prague. The film is scheduled to be ready at the following Film Festival. The story in the film is located in the late 18th century St. Petersburg and its pictography promises light to the dark world of Kafka. The city is just being built and the golden domes raise from a new church. The film tells about a girl who grows up as a maid of honour but then catches syphilis and starts drinking. She ends up begging and singing in bars with her whiskey voice. Finally she is made the saint of alcoholics and horse cab drivers.

Star of Czeck puppet animations

Lillqvist has recently moved from her former studio Trnka in Prague. With the privatization in process in the country, the grand masters of Trnka were left unpaid and although EU encourages animators in the member countries, it has quite forgotten the Czeck geniuses of the puppet world.

Lanterna Magica Exhibition, Set Designs for Puppet Animations, is open in Tampere Hall's A hall daily at 11 am - 6 pm until 15th March. Admission free. Katariina Lillqvist Animations in Adams Cinema at 2 pm. on Friday 6th March.