In Brief: Video Edition

Jan Švankmajer - Dimensions of dialogue

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to good things in Blogville and Beyond.

• The Forum des Images in Paris has presented all of the films of the Czech surrealist Jan Švankmajer (made between 1964 and 2010), with the filmmaker present (the festival concluded today). His stop-motion animated film Dimensions of Dialogue (Možnosti dialogu) caused a sensation at film festivals in Annecy and Berlin, with heads made of fruits and vegetables or clay carrying out hallucinatory action. Terry Gilliam, who calls Švankmajer's work "nightmarish," put it on his list of the ten best animated films of all time. Marie Lechner has an appreciation and an interview. [Libération]


• If you live in France, you can enter a contest to win a DVD of some of Švankmajer's short films. [Forum des Images]


• Marie-Aude Roux informs us in Le Monde of the new Web site where concerts will be streamed live and online for a limited duration, from the Cité de la musique and from the Salle Pleyel. [Cité de la musique Live]


• For example, Paavo Järvi conducting the Orchestre de Paris and violinist Vadim Repin in concert. Also, Maria-Joao Pires, the Quatuor Ebene, and many others. [Orchestre de Paris]


• Baroque music, too, like Sandrine Piau and Bernarda Fink singing Pergolesi's Stabat mater with the Berliner Barock Solisten. Les Arts Florissants and many other groups, going back several years. An embarrassment of riches. [Pergolesi]