Czy to był sen? (lost Polish animated film; 1948)

A frame from the second version of the film taken from the SFR official website.

Status: Lost

Czy to był sen? (Was that a dream?) was the first animated film produced by Studio Filmów Rysunkowych (Animated Film Studio) (or SFR in short) in the Polish city of Bielsko-Biała. It was made in 1948 and was directed by Zdzisław Lachur who was one of the founders of SFR..

Background

Studio Filmów Rysunkowych in Bielsko-Biała produced many animated series and movies that are well-known in Poland such as Bolek and Lolek or Reksio. While most of their animations are rather lighthearted, their first movie - Czy to był sen? had a darker tone than the rest of their productions.

Before SFR has moved to Bielsko-Biała, the movie was made in the city of Wisła.

Czy to był sen? symbolized World War II which ended two years before the movie was produced. The film lasted for 11 minutes and two versions were produced. Both of them were never released to the public and SFR themselves claim that no copies remain and the plot is known thanks to various accounts. Despite this, some frames, portions of the storyboard, and a poster were preserved.

First version

According to an article in an unidentified newspaper, the film was about a goose shepherd named Marysia (Mary) who during work decides to sleep under a tree. Then the butterfly takes her to the land of fairy tales, where a forest orchestra made of little people are singing and dancing on flowers and mushrooms making musical notes come to life and floating through the forest. Suddenly, the notes fall into the cave and are caught in the spider's nest. The said animal wants to eat them and the notes are crying for help. Everybody is going to the cave to help them. However, it is guarded by evil creatures. The monsters are defeated thanks to a miner, who played the horn and blew them into the abyss. Then he tears apart the web and saves the musical notes. Later, the forest creatures place flowers at Marysia's feet and then she wakes up and asks herself: "Was that a dream?".

From this version, only two frames are archived.

Second version

The plot of the second version is similar to the first one and is known thanks to Lachur himself. According to him, similarly to the previous version, Marysia is working as a goose shepherd. Then the butterfly takes her to the evil world, where she is attacked by demons in dark colors. As seen in one frame, some of them had Nazi symbols such as The Schutzstaffel (SS). In the end, four dwarfs are defeating the monsters. Later Marysia sings, wakes up, and asks herself: "Was that a dream?".

Like the first version, from the second one only two frames are found. However, there are also some fragments of the storyboard.

Gallery

Images

• 

  A poster of the movie taken from the book Polski film animowany 1945-1974 written by Andrzej Kossakowski.

• 

  Newspaper article describing the plot of the first version of Czy to był sen?

• 

  A frame from the first version taken from the exhibition celebrating the 75 years of SFR.

• 

  Another frame from the first version.

• 

  A frame from the second version of the film taken from the book Polska Szkoła Animacji (Polish school of animation) written by Paweł Sitkiewicz.

• 

  Fractions of storyboard of the second version of the movie.

Videos

A SFR video about the history of the studio. It uses portions of the storyboard of the movie. (4:10)

External links

• Polish Wikipedia entry about SFR which mentions Czy to był sen?