Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Scottish Premiere) + Street of Crocodiles

Part of Dundead Film Festival 2025 - see the full programme and book a Festival Pass. 

Acclaimed UK-based animators The Brothers Quay return with their first feature in nearly 20 years with this shimmering, haunting phantom-film, largely told through the distinctive stop-motion style that the brothers have become known for. Their dark, grubby and surreal films are often bewildering and beautiful in equal measure, and have earned them passionate fans, including Christopher Nolan; he is such an admirer he curated a tour of their short films in 2015, and directed Quay, a documentary short about the brothers.

This film sees the brothers return to the works of Polish Jewish writer Bruno Schulz for inspiration, adapting his 1937 novel of the same title. But as always, they are less interested in straight-forward literary narrative storytelling, focussing instead on beguiling atmospheres and opaque artistry. Animation is arguably an under-utilised tool for creating a sense of mystery and horror, and the brothers’ tactile, often creepy puppets and their dusty, shabby environments are both absorbing and unsettling. 

For fans of films like Phil Tippett’s celebrated 2021 film Mad God, the works of Jan Svankmajer, and perhaps even David Lynch’s industrial nightmare Eraserhead, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass offers a dreamworld of textures and cryptic surrealism to get lost in.19 years in the making, it is an uncanny, opaque and melancholy film; one which could only have been made by its two directors. 

We’re delighted to be screening this new film alongside the brothers’ celebrated 1986 short film Street of Crocodiles.