Toys in the Attic

The NYICFF 2010 Grand Prize winner is back, 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 a diabolically inventive tale, four parts Toy Story and one part David Lynch, as a group of abandoned toys stage an ambitious rescue of their kidnapped friend. 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, a maniacal Cold War military bust who commands an army of mechanical, mustachioed cockroaches and an all-seeing spying eye. Both a 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, paving the way for modern hits like The Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline, and Fantastic Mr. Fox.