(Timothy & Stephen Quay, UK, total running time 81 min., 35mm and 16mm)

The Quay brothers, identical twins Timothy and Stephen, were raised in Philadelphia and later immigrated to London. There, they have holed up the past couple of decades where they rigorously toil on their painstaking, singular, exquisitely composed stop-motion animation. Their work appears to be influenced not by the animation that has preceded it but by the oddities of natural history: 18th-century curiosity cabinets, medi-cal anomalies, and outdated instruments of science. And their stories are influenced not by contemporary life but by ancient folk tales of the ma-cabre. Even though the brothers shroud their personal lives in mystery, we can still peer into their beautifully twisted psyche through their astonishing films. These two programs feature a near complete collection of their short films, shown almost entirely in new 35mm and 16mm prints!

STREET OF CROCODILES (1986), NOCTURNA ARTIFICIALIA (1979), THE COMB (1990), and IN ABSENTIA (2000).