New York audiences will get a chance to enjoy Toys in the Attic, the new stop-motion movie by Czech master Jiri Barta, on August 25 and 26 at 11 a.m. at the IFC Center.
The NYICFF 2010 Grand Prize winner will be playing, in a new English language version, featuring the voices of Forest Whitaker, Joan Cusack and Cary Elwes. Legendary Czech stop-motion animation master Jiri Barta’s first feature in over 20 years is four parts Toy Story and one part David Lynch, as a group of abandoned toys stage an ambitious rescue of their kidnapped friend.
Here is the official synopsis: “Set behind the doors of a dusty attic, the adorable doll Buttercup plays mom to a motley family of castaways: the station master Teddy Bear, clay-animated Schubert, and the Quixotic marionette knight Sir Handsome. In this enchanted world every day is a birthday, until a mysterious black cat kidnaps the beloved Buttercup and takes her to the Land of Evil ruled by the villainous Head of State, who commands an army of mechanical, mustachioed insects and an all seeing spying eye. Both a wonderfully spooky children’s fairy tale and Soviet-era allegory, Toys in the Attic marks a career highpoint for Barta, who was among the first to raise stop-motion animation to an art form and paved the the way for modern hits like The Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline, and Fantastic Mr. Fox.”
The award-winning production, which is adapted by Vivian Schilling, will be the first digital-only theatrical release for independent studio Hannover House when it launches to theatres nationwide on Sept. 7. Hannover House was founded in 1993 and began handling theatrical releases in 2005, concentrating primarily on limited release openings with films such as Twelve, Cook County and All’s Faire In Love.
The film’s release will expand throughout September and October, with Hannover House ultimately hoping to reach most of the top markets in the U.S. and Canada. The trailer for the film will be posted soon onto the official website, www.ToysFilm.com, following a national television broadcast premiere. Hannover House will host a red-carpet premiere of the film on Tuesday, September 4, 2012 in Los Angeles, following a special event screening in New York City for the New York International Children’s Film Festival in August.
