''Toys in the Attic'' ( cs, Na půdě aneb Kdo má dneska narozeniny?; festival title: ''In the Attic or Who Has a Birthday Today?'') is a 2009 internationally co-produced

stop-motion Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...

animated Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...

film directed by

Jiří Barta Jiří Barta (born 26 November 1948) is a Czech stop-motion animation director. Many of his films use wood as a medium for animation. Among his notable films are the 1986 film ''The Pied Piper''. In 2007 he released his first computer-animated s ...

and written by Edgar Dutka and Barta which depicts a community of

toy A toy or plaything is an object that is used primarily to provide entertainment. Simple examples include toy blocks, board games, and dolls. Toys are often designed for use by children, although many are designed specifically for adults and pet ...

s and other objects in an

attic An attic (sometimes referred to as a '' loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...

who come to life when no human is around. It is an

international co-production A co-production is a joint venture between two or more different production companies for the purpose of film production, television production, video game development, and so on. In the case of an international co-production, production companies ...

between the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

and

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

. The film was released first in the Czech Republic on 5 March 2009 and has been shown subtitled at

film festival A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more cinemas or screening venues, usually in a single city or region. Increasingly, film festivals show some films outdoors. Films may be of recent date and, depending upon ...

s internationally. An

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

English dub Dubbing (re-recording and mixing) is a post-production process used in filmmaking and video production, often in concert with sound design, in which additional or supplementary recordings are lip-synced and "mixed" with original production sou ...

– adapted, produced and directed by

Vivian Schilling Vivian Schilling (born February 15, 1968) is an American novelist, screenwriter, actress, and independent filmmaker. Biography Born and raised in Kansas, Schilling studied at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute and also under Stella Adler bef ...

and performed by actors including

Forest Whitaker Forest Steven Whitaker (born July 15, 1961) is an American actor. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Forest Whitaker, various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a British Academy Film Award ...

Joan Cusack Joan Mary Cusack (; born October 11, 1962) is an American actress. She received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her roles in the comedy-drama ''Working Girl'' (1988) and the romantic comedy '' In & Out'' (1997) ...

Cary Elwes Ivan Simon Cary Elwes (; born 26 October 1962) is an English actor and writer. He is known for his leading film roles as Westley in ''The Princess Bride'' (1987), Robin Hood in '' Robin Hood: Men in Tights'' (1993), and Dr. Lawrence Gordon in ...

and Schilling herself – has been recorded, which the film was first shown with on 3 March 2012 at the

New York International Children's Film Festival New York International Children's Film Festival (NYICFF) Established in 1997, NYICFF’s mission is rooted in the belief of film as a path for young people to understand themselves and others. All programs are designed to celebrate the beauty and po ...

and was released nationally on 24 August 2012 by

Hannover House Hannover House is an American entertainment media distributor, specializing in the manufacture and release of pre-recorded movies and programs onto DVD and Blu-ray Disc, Blu-ray video devices, and the publication of literary and non-fiction books ...

Plot

In an attic full of discarded junk, a pretty doll called Buttercup lives in an old trunk together with her friends, the marionette Sir Handsome, the lovable Teddy Bear, a Mechanical Mouse and the plasticine creature, Laurent. When Buttercup is snatched and taken off to the Land of Evil, her pals set out on a wondrous and daring adventure to rescue her from the all-powerful Head of State. Originally produced in Czech, the meticulously crafted animated feature is set in a magical world of toys and knick-knacks stored in the attic of a home in Prague. Following the symbolism of the Cold War era that impacted director Barta and the Czech Republic, the world of the attic is divided into the land of happy toys in the west and the land of evil in the east. The despotic Head of State rules over the evil empire of the east with a band of sinister minions, insects and rotted vegetables.

Czech Cast

*Bára Dlouhá as Paní Na Ulici *

Barbora Hrzánová Barbora Hrzánová (born 22 April 1964) is a Czech actress and musician. She won the Alfréd Radok Award for Best Actress in 1994 for her role in the play ''The Seagull'' at the Theatre on the Balustrade in Prague. At the 2003 Thalia Awards, s ...

as Myška Sklodowská *

Boris Hybner Boris Hybner (5 August, 1941 – 2 April, 2016) was a Czech actor, director, and mime Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) is an Internet standard that extends the format of email messages to support text in character sets other than A ...

as Mucha *

Vladimír Javorský Vladimír Javorský (born 2 May 1962 in Ostrava Ostrava (; pl, Ostrawa; german: Ostrau ) is a city in the north-east of the Czech Republic, and the capital of the Moravian-Silesian Region. It has about 280,000 inhabitants. It lies from the ...

as Rytíř Krasoň *Nada Konvalinková as Služebná Růženka *Johana Krticková as Holčička - Hlas *

Věra Kubánková Věra Kubánková (22 July 1924 – 13 April 2016) was a Czech actress. At the 2006 Thalia Awards she was honoured in the lifetime achievement in theatre category. She worked at the Divadlo za branou during the 1960s and 1970s. Kubánková also to ...

as Babička - Hlas *Jirí Lábus as Hlava / Vládce Říše Zla *Petr Nározný as Kocour Baron *Lucie Pernetová as Panenka Pomněnka *

Ivan Trojan Ivan Trojan (born 30 June 1964) is a Czech actor, widely considered to be one of the greatest Czech actors of all time. With four Czech Lions for Best Actor in a Leading Role, he has also won two for his supporting roles in ''Seducer'' and '' ...

as Skřítek Šubrt *

Miroslav Táborský Miroslav Táborský (born 9 November 1959 in Prague, Czechoslovakia) is a Czech actor who has appeared on Czech television series, as well as in American movies. Táborský studied physics at the University of Hradec Králové, and then graduate ...

as Doktor Skarab *Ludmila Ungrichtová as Babička *Andrea Zádníková as Holčička

English Dub Cast

as Teddy *

as Madam Curie *

as Buttercup *

as Sir Handsome *

Marcelo Tubert Marcelo Tubert (born February 11, 1952) is an Argentine-born American actor. Biography Early life and career Born in Córdoba, Argentina, Tubert's mother, Miriam Tubert, is an actress who did a great deal of stage work and had her own children ...

as Laurent *

Douglas Urbanski Douglas Urbanski is an American film producer and occasional film actor. He is a twice Oscar-nominated, Golden Globe Nominated and BAFTA-winning motion picture producer. Life and career Urbanski was born in Somerville, New Jersey. In addition t ...

as Head * Rico Simonini as Tomcat * Jo Ellison as Rosie

Production

Jiří Barta and Edgar Dutka wrote the script, originally titled ''Whose Birthday is it Today'' before it was renamed ''Toys in the Attic'', from 1998 to 2000 with the intention of creating a story that was family-orientated, sellable to producers, and having elements of a child's imagination: "When I found an old exercise book with my drawing of a train made from old train tickets with a piece of cigarette for the smokestack, the kid in my imagination reappeared. Edgar and I remembered the games we used to play in strange forbidden places we found in our attics." Due to very short deadlines set by the producer, multiple stages of making ''Toys in the Attic'', including pre-production, production, and post-production, happened at the same time. The film was made by a total of ten to fifteen of Prague art school graduates and Barta's colleagues and friends. Pre-production began in January 2007; it involved not only storyboarding but also creating the puppets and sets from a "huge amount of junk and antique stuff." The filming and animation took place from June 2007 to September 2008, which the final product contains 1,200 stills; and post-production was finished by early 2009. The main part of the film's animation is that of puppets animated by stop motion but there are also examples of

clay animation Clay animation or claymation, sometimes plasticine animation, is one of many forms of stop-motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine clay. Tra ...

in the character Šubrt and the objects of his room,

special effect Special effects (often abbreviated as SFX, F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the imagined events in a story or virtual wor ...

s such as steam in

traditional animation Traditional animation (or classical animation, cel animation, or hand-drawn animation) is an animation technique in which each frame is drawn by hand. The technique was the dominant form of animation in cinema until computer animation. Proce ...

and the face of the

plaster Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for Molding (decorative), moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of ...

bust Bust commonly refers to: * A woman's breasts * Bust (sculpture), of head and shoulders * An arrest Bust may also refer to: Places *Bust, Bas-Rhin, a city in France *Lashkargah, Afghanistan, known as Bust historically Media * ''Bust'' (magazine ...

Hlava ("Head") was performed in

pixilation Pixilation is a stop motion technique in which live actors are used as a frame-by-frame subject in an animated film, by repeatedly posing while one or more frame is taken and changing pose slightly before the next frame or frames. The actor beco ...

and voiced in the original Czech audio by actor

Jiří Lábus Jiří Lábus (born 26 January 1950, in Prague) is a Czech actor. His brother is the Czech architect Ladislav Lábus. In 1973, he graduated from the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and joined the theatre Studio Ypsilon, where he remains ...

Release

The film was theatrically released on 5 March 2009 by CinemArt and was premiered at the

. It was also released on DVD, VOD and Blu-ray on November 23, 2009 by Magic Box.

Reception

CinemaArt released the film in the Czech Republic on 6 March 2009. Peter Debruge compared the film to ''

Toy Story ''Toy Story'' is a 1995 American computer-animated comedy film directed by John Lasseter (in his feature directorial debut), produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The first installment in the '' Toy Story ...

'' in a reviews for ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'', and complimented the animation: "despite their inflexible faces, Barta conceives all sorts of inventive ways to bring these inanimate objects to life. ��Should a given shot prove too tricky to accomplish practically, Barta has no qualms about using digital compositing to blend multiple stop-motion plates. Though rudimentary, fire and water effects are especially effective." About the film's commercial prospects, Debruge wrote: "For all its charms, ''In the Attic'' feels vaguely sinister and may prove too intense for younger kids – a testament to the film's pacing and score, as well as how deeply auds emotionally connect with these occasionally macabre toy characters." The film has been honored with awards including an Excellence Prize for animation at the 2010

Japan Media Arts Festival The Japan Media Arts Festival is an annual festival held since 1997 by Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs. The festival begins with an open competition and culminates with the awarding of several prizes and an exhibition. Based on judging by ...

, those for best feature at the 2010 New York International Children's Film Festival and the 2011 Tehran International Animation Festival, in both winning over ''

The Secret of Kells ''The Secret of Kells'' is a 2009 animated fantasy film about the making of the Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript from the 9th Century. The film is an Irish-French-Belgian co-production animated by Cartoon Saloon, which premiered on 8 Fe ...

'', and the Kecskemét City Award at the 7th

Festival of European Animated Feature Films and TV Specials A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival co ...

in 2011.
10. Kecskeméti Animációs Filmfesztivál 7. Európai Animációs Játékfilm Fesztivál
'. Kecskeméti Animáció Film Fesztivál. 2011. The film has a 70% on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

Awards

References

External links

* * * {{facebook, toysintheatticfilm, ''Toys in the Attic''
Behind the scenes photographs
at Bio Illusion 2009 films 2000s children's fantasy films Czech animated films Films about dolls Films about toys Films directed by Jiří Barta Films about sentient toys 2000s stop-motion animated films Czech Lion Awards winners (films) 2009 animated films Films based on fairy tales Czech animated fantasy films