Watch Franz Kafka, the Short Animated Film by Piotr Dumala

Let’s sneak in a quick birth­day cel­e­bra­tion before the 4th. Franz Kaf­ka was born on this day (July 3), a good 127 years ago. To com­mem­o­rate the occa­sion, we’re pre­sent­ing Piotr Dumala’s 1992 short ani­mat­ed film called, quite sim­ply, Franz Kaf­ka. Dumala’s ani­ma­tion tech­nique grew out of his train­ing as a sculp­tor, when he start­ed exper­i­ment­ing with scratch­ing images into paint­ed plas­ter. Lat­er he devel­oped a more full blown method known as “destruc­tive ani­ma­tion,” which is on full dis­play in the film. You can learn more about Dumala and his approach here. The six­teen minute film is based on The Diaries of Franz Kaf­ka, and now appears in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

This post orig­i­nal­ly appeared on our site in 2010. On what would now be Kafka’s 130th birth­day, we’re brin­ing it back…

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Kafka’s Night­mare Tale, ‘A Coun­try Doc­tor,’ Told in Award-Win­ning Japan­ese Ani­ma­tion

Vladimir Nabokov (Chan­nelled by Christo­pher Plum­mer) Teach­es Kaf­ka at Cor­nell

Nabokov Makes Edi­to­r­i­al Improve­ments to Kafka’s The Meta­mor­pho­sis

Find works by Kaf­ka in our Free eBooks and Free Audio Books col­lec­tions