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Europa is a 12-minute anti-fascist film made in 1931 in Warsaw, Poland by surrealists Stefan and Franciszka Themerson. The film is based on Anatol Stern's 1925 futurist poem Europa. It uses collages and photograms, and articulates the sense of horror and moral decline its makers were witnessing. The film, while long thought to have been lost, is considered an avant-garde masterpiece.
Status
Released
Original Language
PL
The original film Europa was made by Stefan and Franciska Themerson in Poland 1931 and was a visual interpretation of Anatol Stern’s 1929 poem Europa. The film was lost during the second world war and has never been recovered. This tape-slide reconstruction of Europa was made in 1983-84 by the Distribution Staff of the London Film Maker’s Co-Operative with Stefan and Franciszka Themerson using surviving stills from the film and a voice-over by John Claus.

In a poet’s room, an armless statue abruptly comes to life. It invites the poet to step through a mirror and to discover another world. Strange places and characters present themselves to him. The poet tears himself away from these twisted fascinations and returns, with some difficulty, to his room.