Screening Conditions: Little Otik

A childless couple take a tree stump for a baby, but it comes to life and develops an insatiable and cannibalistic appetite. Jan Svankmajer's surrealist retelling of a folk story, released in 2000, uses a combination of live action and stop-motion animation.

The film will be introduced by psychoanalyst Andrea Sabbadini and followed by a discussion with guest speaker psychoanalyst Donald Campbell.

This event is part of the Screening Conditions series Horror: The Dark Side of the Unconscious, a selection of chilling but intelligent films raising fascinating questions about the appeal of horror movies and concepts of spectatorship and transformation.

Andrea Sabbadini is a practising psychoanalyst and is the Director of the European Psychoanalytic Film Festival and of the Screening Conditions series of films at the ICA.

Donald Campbell is a past President of The Institute of Psychoanalysis, and former Secretary General of the International Psychoanalytical Association. He has written on the subjects of violence, suicide, shame, child sexual abuse, adolescence and horror films.

*ADDITIONAL SPEAKER*

We’re delighted to be joined by a further guest speaker, film writer Michael Brooke, who writes for Sight & Sound.