A Trip to the Moon and Fantastic Planet

Kinemastik Film Club will return on Sunday, 2nd May, as a double bill science fiction night, with a short film “A Trip to the Moon” and an animated feature Fantastic Planet.

A Trip to the Moon (French: Le Voyage dans la lune) is a 1902 French black and white silent science fiction film. It is based loosely on two popular novelsof the time: From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne and The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells.

The film was written and directed by Georges Méliès, assisted by his brother Gaston. The film runs 14 minutes if projected at 16 frames per second, which was the standard frame rate at the time the film was produced. It was extremely popular at the time of its release and is the best-known of the hundreds of fantasy films made by Méliès. A Trip to the Moon is the first science fiction film, and utilizes innovative animation and special effects.

Fantastic Planet (French: La Planète Sauvage, lit. The Savage Planet) is a 1973 animated science fiction film directed by René Laloux, production designed by Roland Topor, written by both of them and animated at Jiří Trnka Studio.

A French/Czech co-production, the dream-like La Planete Sauvage concerns the degradation of the Oms, human-like creatures on the futuristic planet Yagam.

The Oms are kept as pets and beasts of burden by the Draggs, 39-foot beings who comprise Yagam’s ruling class. The status quo is upset when Terr, one of the Oms, accidentally receives an education, whereupon he organizes the other Oms to demand equality with the Draggs. Based on Stefen Wul’s novel Ems En Serie, Fantastic Planet was the winner of a 1973 Cannes Film Festival grand prize.

The soundtrack for this film, composed by Alain Goraguer, is tastefully orchestrated and uniquely original. A must for the collector of the avant-garde, psychedelic, or experimental.

The entrance to Kinemastik’s Drive In film club is free and for MEMBERS ONLY.