Halas and Batchelor Cartoon Films

Asterix and Obelix depart on an adventure to complete twelve impossible tasks to prove to Caesar that they are as strong as the Gods. You'll roar with laughter as they outwit, outrun, and generally outrage the very people who are trying to prove them "only human".

Animals on a farm lead a revolution against the farmers to put their destiny in their own hands. However this revolution eats their own children and they cannot avoid corruption.

Football crazy, football mad. Don’t watch this off-beat jukebox cartoon expecting any conventional soccer action. Equal parts Disney, Dali and Duchamp, this abstract mix of black and white photos and alternative comix style animation is accompanied by a medley of doo-wop classics and documentary soundbites. The film is certainly an extreme departure for those familiar with the more conventional output of the Halas & Batchelor studio, best known for their feature-length version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1954). Paul Vester was one of a number of sixties art school graduates that brought a mix of pop art and illustration influences to the company whilst it was undergoing a brief change in its ownership. As a warning, in keeping with its progressive, adult style there is some brief nudity at the end of the film.

A BAFTA award nominated reworking of a 1957 documentary using models and animation to explain the need to mix air and petrol in the correct proportions to create an efficient fuel for an engine.

An animated film about the history and use of hot water.

A BAFTA award winning documentary on the basic principles and applications of hydrostatics.

An androgynous person is climbing up a swaying tower of humans who hang in the air. Many drop into a sea of flies below them. The flies pick at their brains. At the top of the tower a lotus flower opens and radiates light.

Seville's most successful Matador has a secret, which his rival will use against him when he finds out.

An animated visual interpretation of the song "Autobahn," by German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk. A fast-paced experimental film which proved to be a groundbreaking combination of electronic and manual animation. One of the first films produced specifically for video disk.

Animated version of the fairy tale. Tom proves himself cleverer than his brothers when he outwits an ogre and returns home with treasure.

An introduction to the life and work of Joy Batchelor on the hundredth anniversary of her birth. Joy was a director, animator, producer and designer and one half of the Halas & Batchelor Cartoons Studio, which made the UKs first animated feature film, Animal Farm, in 1954. Although a crucial figure in British animation, she has for years been unfairly passed over for recognition. This short film made in her honour seeks to redress that balance and to introduce Joy's work to a wider audience. The film was produced by her daughter, Vivien Halas.

A light hearted look at the various instruments of the orchestra, based on the original cartoons of the late Gerard Hoffnung, satirising musical pomposity.

a short Halas & Batchelor animation about the adventures of Bolly and his friends on imaginary planets, featuring animation by Tony Guy, animation director on Watership Down

A BAFTA award nominated animation looking at the development of oil prospecting techniques since the 19th century.

Our animated hero questions his sanity after blowing his top and driving his car into a police station.

A poem of unrequited love: the studio's first puppet production. Based on a poem by Cosbie Garstin, the film tells the story of a carved wooden saint who is painted to look like a soldier and used as a figurehead on a sailing ship. The ship sinks and the figurehead is saved by a beautiful mermaid who falls in love with him. Her love is not returned because despite his dashing looks he has the wooden heart of a saint.

An animated, dark satire of America's automobile-obsessed, consumerist culture. An anonymous, brilliant scientist toils tirelessly in his ivory tower satisfying the public's ever-increasing demands for novelty and status consciousness, with predictable environmental consequences.

T'was the night before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

An animated cartoon on smoking and health. The villain, Old Nick O'Teen, disguises himself as an 18-year-old motorcyclist, the better to lure children into the cigarette habit. Fourteen-year-old Sam falls into the trap, but after awesome visions of his future, expert advice from a doctor, and straight talk from a friendly lorry-driver renounces the habit.

One of a humorous series of films devised to explain in graphic terms the concepts of basic mathematical functions.