Renaissance (1964 film)

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1963 French film

Renaissance

Directed by| Walerian Borowczyk
Written by| Walerian Borowczyk
Produced by| Jacques Forgeot
Cinematography| Guy Durban
Edited by| Claude Blondel
Music by| Avenir de Monfred
Animation by| Walerian Borowczyk

Production
company

Les Cinéastes Associés

Distributed by| Connoisseur Film Ltd.

Release date

* December 1963 (1963-12) (France)

Running time

| 9 minutes
Country| France

Renaissance (also known as Renesans) is a 1964 French reverse stop-motion animation short film directed by Walerian Borowczyk.[1][2][3] The opening credits of the short include a dedication to experimental filmmaker Hy Hirsh, who died from a heart attack in 1961.[3]

## Plot

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An explosion reveals an obliterated corner of a room, and the remnants of several objects. They begin to reconstruct themselves, becoming books, a doll, a stuffed owl, and a trumpet. Books and furniture reassemble themselves. Finally, a bomb pieces itself back together and explodes, reducing the items to debris once more.

## Themes

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Film critic Raymond Durgnat describes Renaissance as "a remembrance of things past, a meditation on a peasant-bourgeois stability, on what in it was life-affirming, what life-denying ... Implicit in the film is the question whether any human order can avoid destruction."[4]

## Release

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### Home media

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Arrow Films released a high-definition restoration of the film in Walerian Borowczyk: Short Films and Animations, one of five volumes included in Camera Obscura: The Walerian Borowczyk Collection, a dual-format box set released on 8 September 2014. The collection was limited to a thousand copies. Bonus content included an introduction by filmmaker Terry Gilliam; Film Is Not a Sausage, a featurette about Borowczyk's short films, with archival footage of the filmmaker and interviews with director André Heinrich, producer Dominique Duvergé-Ségrétin, and composer Bernard Parmegiani; Blow Ups, a visual essay by Daniel Bird about Borowczyk's paintings and poster work; a 32-page essay featuring essays and reviews on the director's work, as well as detailed restoration and projection notes; and several commercials made by Borowczyk during his career.[4][5][6]

Olive Films also released a Blu-ray collection of the director's short films from 1959 through to 1984, The Walerian Borowczyk Short Film Collection, on 25 April 2017.[3][7]

## Reception

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Renaissance won the Solvay Prize and the Prize of the International Federation of Film Critics at the 1963 Knokke-le-Zoute International Experimental Film Festival [fr]. The film was also awarded the Jury's Special Prize at the 1963 International Film Festival Tours.

The film was screened out-of-competition at the 1965 Annecy International Animation Film Festival.[4] In 2012, Renaissance was nominated for Fantastic Entertainment at the French Fantastic Cinema Retrospective.[7]

## References

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1. ^ "Renaissance – Court-métrage d'animation (1964)" [Renaissance – Animated short film (1964)]. SensCritique (in French). Retrieved July 8, 2021.
2. ^ "John Clare, Jimmy Wales and the Right to be Forgotten, Borowczyk Retrospective Walerian Borowczyk". BBC. Retrieved July 8, 2021.
3. ^ a b c "RENAISSANCE". British Board of Film Classification. Archived from the original on September 7, 2017. Retrieved July 8, 2021.
4. ^ a b c Durgnat, Raymond. "Borowczyk and the Cartoon Renaissance". Raymond Durgnat. Retrieved July 9, 2021.
5. ^ "WALERIAN BOROWCZYK (SHORT FILMS & ANIMATION) DUAL FORMAT". Arrow Films. Retrieved July 9, 2021.
6. ^ "Camera Obscura: The Walerian Borowczyk Collection – Special Features Revealed!". The Arts Shelf. April 16, 2014. Retrieved July 9, 2021.
7. ^ a b Erickson, Glenn (May 13, 2017). "The Walerian Borowczyk Short Film Collection". Trailers from Hell. Retrieved July 9, 2021.

## External links

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* Renaissance at IMDb