Quay Brothers

The Brothers Quay, Stephen and Timothy are identical twins. They have been heavily influenced, not only by Jan Svankmajer, but also by Eastern European filmaking and music in general. One of their collaborators is the Polish avant-garde composer Lech Jankowski and In Absentia has some music by Karlheinz Stockhausen, one of the pioneers of electronic music.

Their films are often short, use stop-motion animation and incorporate dark, haunting imagery by using old, broken dolls, meat, strangely constructed puppets and vaguely abstract images (they've definitely been influenced by anomorphosis, which they made film about). The Cabinet Of Jan Svankmajer is most likely a tribute to their old mentor. Their films have influenced Fred Stuhr who created the videos Sober and Prison Sex for Tool and they had something to do with the video for Peter Gabriel's video for Sledgehammer. Institute Benjamenta is their only full length, live action film.

While Otto Omicron mentions that they are living in New York at the moment, I've heard that they are holed up in in Britain somewhere.

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A list of their films (Courtesy of zeitgeistfilm.com):

• Nocturna Artificialia (1979, 21 min)
• The Cabinet Of Jan Svankmajer (1984, 14 min)
• The Epic of Gilgamesh (1985, 11 min)
• Street Of Crocodiles (1986, 21 min)
• Rehearsals For Extinct Anatomies (1987, 14 min)
• The Comb (1991, 17 min)
• Anamorphosis (1991, 15 min)
• The Pop Promos and "Stille Nacht" Series
  • Dramolet (1988, 1 min)
  • Are We Still Married (1991, 3 min)- video for His Name is Alive
  • Tales From the Vienna Woods (1992, 3 min)
  • Can't Go Wrong Without You (1993, 3 min) - Video for His Name is Alive
  • Long Way Down (Look What the Cat Drug In) (1988, 3 min)
• Institute Benjamenta (1995, 105 min)
• In Absentia (2000, 20 min)