Northwest Film Forum

Internationally renowned Czech animator Zdenek Miler got his start in the 1940s working with the legendary Jiri Trnka, the father of Czech animation. Seeking inspiration for a character to star in his own cartoon feature, Miler was walking through the woods when he (quite literally) stumbled over a mole hill. From this chance encounter was born Miler’s 1957 cartoon How the Mole Got His Trousers. The loveable Mole (or Krtek in Czech) returned to the screen in the early sixties and went on to star in a half hundred different cartoons and short films that have entertained audiences in over 80 different countries around the world. 

In addition to a rainbow of surrealistic colors, Mole's wide international appeal is owed in part to the strong narrative structures of these cartoons, which do not feature dialogue, but instead rely on a series of non-verbal exclamations that were provided by Miler's young daughters.  Come and thrill in Mole’s series of adventures as our hero saves a falling star, tinkers with a camera, yearns to own a car, takes a journey to the big city, a trip to a chemical plant (!) and fights to save his forest from a marauding bulldozer.