The legendary artists and film-makers Timothy and Stephen Quay have built up a remarkable body of work that includes stop-motion animation, drawings, and performing arts productions. Influenced heavily by Central and Eastern European writers, artists, and musicians including the Czechs Jan Švankmajer and Leoš Janáček, the Prague-born Franz Kafka or the Polish-Jewish writer Bruno Schulz, they have created a dreamy universe filled with lyrical darkness, strange characters, and curious psychological scenarios.  Like alchemists, the Quay Brothers breathe new life into their collections of curiosa and inanimate objects. Almost all of their work bears strong literary references, such as their most famous work to date Street of Crocodiles (1986), which was chosen by Terry Gilliam as one of the ten best animated films of all time. Their long-awaited and recently released feature Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, inspired by the writing of Bruno Schulz, is a triumphant return to long-form cinema for the Quay Brothers.  

The conversation between the Quay Brothers and writer and journalist Benjamin Balint will be followed by the artists’ special selection of their celebrated short films.