“Les Fables” at Luxembourg City Tourist Office

“Les Fables” (1922-1932), directed by Ladislaw Starewitch, based on the work of Jean de la Fontaine
Screening with live music for young audiences (aged 7 and above)

Music: Yannick Donet and Lisa Lefort

“Les Fables”, a film screening with live music for young audiences, brings together five short films made by Ladislas Starevich between 1922 and 1932. Directly inspired by the famous tales by Jean de La Fontaine, the films illustrate five fables full of the author's distinctive fantasy, humour, mischief and tenderness. Sixty years before digital imaging and 3D, Ladislas Starevich, a natural history enthusiast and pioneer of animated film, brought wooden toys to life and gave animals and plants human characteristics.

Revisited by the master of puppet animation, these classic masterpieces – Les Grenouilles qui demandent un roi (“The Frogs who Desired a King”), Le Rat des villes et le Rat des champs (“The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse”), La Cigale et la Fourmi (“The Ant and the Grasshopper”), Le Lion et le moucheron (“The Lion and the Gnat”) and Le Lion devenu vieux (“The Lion Grown Old”) – will delight both film buffs and lovers of poetry.

Additionally, “Les Fables” looks at how the films were created, with explanations by Ladislas Starevich and his daughter Irene in a short concluding documentary, Comment naît et s’anime une ciné-marionnette (“How puppet cinema is born and animated”). A contemporary musical accompaniment by Yannick Donet, guitarist, and Lisa Lefort, cellist and puppeteer, both members of the RAS collective, will enchant young and old alike.