TV SFA – about us
MAIN PRODUCTION SERIES
Primarily, films and series for children:
Unlike any other form of art, animated film affects the shaping of the personality and development of the child from a very early age thanks to its huge power of influence and the ability to focus the child’s attention on moving pictures and the use of visual signs which the child recognises before learning to read and write. It builds the child’s attitude towards the surrounding reality, offers an opportunity to learn one’s own culture and tradition.
POLISH FAIRY TALES
2009 – 2007; 2005 – 2002
26 episodes x 13’. A series of animated films for children made for Channel 1 of Polish Television S.A.
The open, auteur formula of the series facilitates creative film interpretation of Polish fairy tales, stories and fables, attractive to the contemporary child. Each episode has been made using a different technique and different aesthetics. Tradition and contemporariness intertwine. As a result, the child is presented with a unique animation production, which remaining faithful to the literary original in terms of the story told invites the child to explore the diverse film conventions.
„/…/A concept of animation based on juggling genre conventions, situation, character and linguistic comedy, often revealing surprising contradictions, has proved a good idea for adapting well-known tales to the screen. This device has given them some new added shine and freshness. And what was once “a long, long time ago” or “behind mountains, behind forests’, has turned out not to be so distant after all. And this is one reason why one should watch these fairy tales… and maybe also because Adam Mickiewicz said a long time ago that “this world is a pure fairytale!’/…/”. From the review by Iwona Grodź in Akademia Filmowa
39 awards and commendations at international and national film festivals, including the prestigious Gold World Medal in New York, Platinum Remi Award and Special Remi Award in Houston and Gold Panda in Sichuan.
In the years 2006 and 2008, the first 13 parts of the ‘Polish Fairy Tales’ series appeared on DVD limited to 4,000 copies.
Up to date, films from the ‘Baśnie i Bajki Polskie’ [Polish Fairy Tales] series have been presented at over 250 film festivals and reviews, including in London, Rimini, Teheran, Pretoria, Sichuan, Chicago, Amsterdam, Madrid, Roma, Rimouski, Giffoni, Houston, Riga, Cairo, Tallin, Taipei, Buenos Aires, Vilnius, Chemnitz, Tel Aviv, Sydney, Hiroshima, Umei, Palm Springs, Tabor, Sheffield, Melbourne, Adelaide, Montevideo, Sancy, Toronto, Zlín, Moskwa, Třeboň, Gyor, Stuttgart, Oslo, San Francisco, Taiwan, Bosna and Hercegovina, Barcelona, Espinho, Berlin, Geneva, Ottawa, Kopenhagen, Seoul, Rio De Janeiro, Sao Paolo, Positano, New York, Clermont-Ferrand, Tampere, Annecy, Semarang, Changzhou, Mill Valley, Leipzig, Siena, Belfast, Ravenna, Bratislava.
The ‘Baśnie i Bajki Polskie’ [Polish Fairy Tales] series has been sold to 40 countries including the United Kingdom, Italy (2x), Spain (2x), Portugal (2x), Finland, Brazil, Argentina, Slovenia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Malta, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Pakistan, Cyprus, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Vatican, Republic of San Marino, Monaco, Switzerland (Italian-speaking part).
FANTAZY THE BEAR
2008 – 2006
13 episodes x 13’. A series of animated films for children, commissioned by Channel 1 of Polish Television S.A.
„Miś Fantazy” [Fantazy the Bear] is a story of the power of love which takes various forms of goodness, friendship, fidelity or happiness, strives to light up the world and make us better people. Fantazy and his friends have adventures filled with warn humour and imagination. They learn what the meaning of true friendship and happiness is. They solve the secrets of nature and encounter unusual natural phenomena. Together with Fantazy, the child goes on a unique “journey”, which stimulates imagination, invites to a land of magic and fantasy, develops empathy, while the mysterious mood of the tale, full of colours, as well as the charm and warmth of the characters, their relationships with one another and with the world outside form a splendid basis for a film tale for children. The rich, colourful, hand-painted set design, rare at this day and age of mass production, is a huge added value of the original adventures which are far from the banal.
5 awards and commendations at international and national festivals, including the prestigious Gold Remi Award, Silver Remi Award in Houston, Best TV Series Award, Best Animation Award in Nairobi.
In 2008, the „Miś Fantazy” [Fantazy the Bear] series appeard in two volumes on DVD issued in 4,000 copies.
Up to date, the series has been presented at over 50 domestic and international festivals, including in Hamedan, Warszawa, Positano, Cairo, Espinho, Chicago, Vilnius, Amsterdam, Madrid, Ottawa, Nairobi, Munich, Gdynia, Sanok, Zagórze, Houston, Mink, Sichuan, Mubai, Hamburg, Tel Aviv, La Rochelle, Buenos Aires, Rio De Janeiro, Sao Paolo, Manchester, Shanghai, Giffoni, Lipetsk, Sheffiled, Kristiansand, San Francisco, Toronto, Portofino, Łódź.
The series has been sold to 36 countries, including Italy, Spain, Portugal, Finland, Japan, South Corea, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, Ukraine, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Greece, Cyprus, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Republic of South Africa.
Also films and series for older children and young audiences:
FOURTEEN TALES FROM LAILONIA KINGDOM BY LESZEK KOŁAKOWSKI
2000 – 1997
11 episodes x 15’. A series of animated films commissioned by Channel 2 of Polish Television S.A.
Films in this series provide fun and education, awaken the sensitivity of young viewers, invite to a discussion and independent reflection.
They invite the viewer to look at the surrounding world from different points of view, and above all, endeavour to cultivate and reinforce in young people the skill of asking questions and seeking answers, which small children posses, and which we tend to lose while growing older in favour of uncritical acceptance of “obvious truths” and paths already well-travelled.
These stories also have drama values, which allow their deep and wise message to be conveyed using film means, such as the structure of the tale, action filled with unexpected twists, colourful characters, tragedy and humour present both in the action and in the dialogues, as well as the intensity of the experiences of the heroes.
31 awards and commendations at international and national film festivals, including the prestigious Best Animated Film Award in Siena, the Second Prize in Szolnok, Poznańskie Koziołki, Marcin and Marcinek awards granted at the Poznań Film Festival.
ANIMATION FILMS TO CLASSICAL MUSIC
2010 – 2005; 1997 – 1989
Motto
„Even if you gave me Europe’s best grand piano,
but make me play before an audience which doesn’t understand,
doesn’t want to understand, and is unable to share with me what I’m playing
– I would lose the willingness and joy that my music gives me.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
61 auteur animated films set to classical music (55 films commissioned by Channel 1 of Polish Television S.A. and 6 independent films. The series is primarily aimed at children and young people. Its aim is to popularise best performed classical music.
Animation, which gives unlimited possibilities of creating images, is „musical” by its nature, affecting the viewers’ imagination through condensed ideas achieved by the texture of movement, visual and literary associations and editing, thus allowing to create musical film impressions without destroying the inner structure of the music. Music is the protagonist of those films, performing the function of a narrator, creating the rhythm of the images, the pace of movement, organising the space in the film frame. Through simultaneous activity of sounds and images, the viewers’ attention is at the same time focused on listening and watching.
Films from the Film Miniatures to Classical Music series have received 71 awards and commendations at international and national film festivals, including 7 awards granted by Children’s Juries. In addition to main awards, the films were awarded and appreciated for script, artwork, directing, animation, perfect transposition of music into pictures, for creativeness of form and imaginativeness, for the best TV films and best video clips for children, for stylistic purity of animated painting, for original artwork and for unique artistic values.
The series of animation films set to classical music has always been a very attractive commercial offer of Polish Television. The film miniatures have been sold to over 50 television stations in a number of countries, including Cyprus, Sweden (5x), Mexico, Japan (3x), Spain (5x), United Kingdom, Switzerland, Korea (2x), Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary (2x), Lithuania, Norway, Finland (3x), Iran, Kuwait, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Russia (2x), USA, Taiwan (4x), Brazil, Portugal, Republic of South Africa, Canada, France (2x), Germany, Costa Rica, China (3x), Hong Kong (2x), Czech Republic (2x), Romania, Greece.
The series was also released on DVD: China (2x), Russia and the CIS, English-speaking countries of Africa, including the Republic of South Africa, Mauritius, Seychelles, Hong Kong. In 2010 the series was released on DVD in Poland.
IMPRESSIONS
1997 – 1993
12 auteur animation films, commissioned by Channel 1 of Polish Television S.A.
With their personal, subjective and often-surprising vision of the paintings and with their feelings at the start the authors use the films to show their own poetic interpretation of art, at the same time trying to find the inner coherence, atmosphere and aura created by the painter. They embark on a dialogue with the audience and inspire them to define their own approach to art. This series offers the viewer a new form of „meeting” with art. Yet, it does not intend to substitute the direct contact with the original works but rather to supplement the usual ways of art perception.
12 awards and commendations at domestic and international film festivals, including a Special Award for an innovative method of popularising classic phenomena in art in the “Impressions” cycle at the Festival of Films on Art in Zakopane.
INDEPENDENT PRODUCTIONS
2010 – 2005
Since 2005, the Studio has been making independent films with support from the Polish Film Art Institute. The Film Miniatures to Classical Music series is being continued, new shorts for children are being made.
In 2007, a special version of ‘Len’ (The Flax) directed by Joanna Jasińska Koronkiewicz was made for children with hearing impairment. It was the first translation of film dialogues to sign language in Poland, fully made by youth with hearing impairment from Poznań Educational Centre for Children with Hearing Impairment. At a special series of workshops organised by the Poznań Creativity, Culture and Arts Support Foundation (ARS), children adapted and translated a fairytale into the sign language. After more than six months of work on the translation, the sign-speaking actors were filmed using a digital camera in a blue-box and then the sign-language narration was combined with the film. The film “Len” (The Flax) in the version for the hard-of-hearing children appeared as an insert in the “Polska – The Times, Głos Wielkopolski” newspaper on 14 December 2007 (40,000 copies). Copies of the film were also donated to centres for children with hearing impairment all over Poland.
The films have been presented at over 100 domestic and international festivals, including Kraków, Poznań, Kopenhagen, Hannover, Hamburg, Lubeca, China, Rimini, La Bourboule, Le Mont-Dore, Dubrovnik, Łęczyca, Washington DC, Tarnów, Sandomierz, Sanok, Zagórze, Cairo, Leeds, Ontario, Montreal, Providence, Harare, Dumfries, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Falkirk, Chemnitz, Cetraro, Tarnów, Rzeszów, Nowy Sącz, Łagów, Warszawa, Drnholec, Annecy, Łódź, Kaliningrad, Zielona Góra, Moskwa, Wrocław, Gdynia, Szczecin, Pilzno, Bratislava, Toruń, Wiedeń, Teheran, Pretoria, Koszalin, Nairobi, Quito, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Ukraine, Chicago, Buenos Aires, Brno, Hiroshima, Zlín, Aszchabad, Madrid.
3 awards and commendations at domestic and international festivals, including the First Prize granted to the film „Dies Irae” at the International Film Festival in Italy for the creation of wonderful effects and for the balance and mastery in showing Mozart’s music through animation.