2 min; directed by Marcell Jankovics, produced by Pannónia Filmstúdió, Hungary
This very short hand-drawn film depicts the Titan Prometheus as he struggles through time and space to bring fire to earth. He starts off young and full of vigor, accompanied by triumphant music, but by the end both he and the flame have aged. Will he succeed in his quest? The ending leaves it an open question.
The film recalls Jankovics’ earlier work, 1974’s ‘Sisyphus,’ which was nominated for an Academy Award.
Prometheus was a particularly potent figure in Soviet and Eastern Bloc art and culture — “Prometheus” was a popular name for bookstores in the USSR. He was characterized as a hero who fought against the gods in order to help mortals, who valued humanity more than himself, and who was tortured and suffered for his good deeds. The fire he brought to Earth was usually interpreted as the fire of knowledge and he was understood as fighting for equal rights for all, like a believer who longs for the coming of world communism (see also the animated films ‘Prometheus’ (1974) and ‘The Return from Olympus’ (1969) by Alexandra Snezkho-Blotskaya). Prometheus also taught people skills–for example, how to work with stone–and because of this he was viewed as an advocate for the working classes.
And yet, as a figure of revolt or resistance, he was also embraced by those who opposed the communist regime: for example, Prometheus was the name of a Russian underground avant-garde video art collective from the 1970s, while Prometheism was an important social movement in the early 20th c. that supported nationalist independence movements among non-Russian peoples living within Russian borders, which was crushed by Stalin’s purges. This duality made him a potent symbol as he could both uphold or destabilize dominant communist values.
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Animated Antiquity 
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