Feature Animation

'Tales from the Magic Garden' Stop-Motion Animation Feature at Berlinale 2025 (Generation KPlus)

Tales from the Magic Garden animation still

The long-gestated stop-motion animated feature film 'Tales from the Magic Garden' (previous title: Of Unwanted Things and People)  will have its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival 2025 in the Generation Kplus competition.

Starting its development in 2013, the 4 CEE-country project was already in concept in 2016 as a Czech-Slovakian project, before the rest of the partners joined in 2019.

The stop-motion film, inspired by the children’s fairytale book Of Unwanted Things and People by Czech author Arnošt Goldflam,  is directed by David Súkup (Czech Republic), Patrik Pašš (Slovakia), Leon Vidmar (Slovenia) and Jean-Claude Rozec (France).

Three kids spend the night at their grandpa’s house. To fill the silence after losing their grandma, the family’s storyteller, they create their own stories and discover the power of imagination. This uplifting stop-motion film celebrates creativity and its healing magic - Synopsis

The production team proves the dictum that artistry finds its best place in unity: we see Maurfilm (Martin Vandas, Alena Vandasová CZ), Artichoke (Juraj Krasnohorský, Henrieta Cvangová SK), ZVVIKS (Kolja Saksida, SI), Vivement Lundi! (Jean-Francois Le Corre, Mathieu Courtois FR) . The CEE Animation network played a key role in the meeting and long-term relationship between the producers, whose collaboration now extends to numerous films and future projects. As Alena Vandasová, producer at Maurfilm, states:  "It has been a fantastic, friendly collaboration that lasted an incredible ten years, requiring patience from all the collaborators, funding bodies, and numerous other partners".

The screenplay was written by Jerneja Kaja Balog, Maja Križnik, Blandine Jet, Patrik Pašš, Marek Král, and Petr Krajíček. Patricia Ortiz Martínez and Jean-Claude Rozec created the artistic design of the stop-motion film.

Children's programming often avoids the topic of death for fear of evoking negative emotions, leaving children who experience a loss feeling isolated, as if no one acknowledges what has happened. Despite the creative and financial risks, the producers decided to approach this sensitive topic in a careful and thoughtful way, and that's why this film is so important to me - Jean-Claude Rozec, film director

The film has a few firsts. It is the first feature-length animated film for children with a Slovenian producer (ZVVIKS) and director in which all production partners share equal involvement (since the nature of the episodic book project necessitated such an approach), yet this is a collaborative effort. Lucia Chuťková, the Slovakian film music composer states: “I tried to create a unified, harmonious universe that connects four stories with their own characters and the vision of four directors who have their own aesthetic perception. This was challenging for me on the one hand, but also very inspiring, and musically, it brought a rich instrumental diversity that fuses the film into a seamless narrative.”

The first images


The film will have its world premiere at the Generation Kplus Competition, a festival section dedicated to films that resonate with younger audiences. Following its world premiere at Berlinale on February 16th, Tales from the Magic Garden will be presented in a sneak preview at Cartoon Movie in March 2025.

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