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The Sausage Run

The 10-minutes cartoon film THE SAUSAGE RUN tells the tragic story of a little lamb with the help of multiple Zoetropes, loosely based on the well-known Grimm’s fairy tale ‘Little Red Riding Hood’.

The roles of the humans and animals are exchanged. The human characters in the film are depicted as anthropomorphous animals. The animal in the story, the big bad wolf, is here a human being.

‘Little Red Riding Hood’s’ family consists of the mother sheep, the lamb as ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ and a grandfather sheep. The forester and his wife are dogs with a soft spot for sausages. The wolf, a butcher, is a man with a serious problem - he has run out of meat.

The story takes place in Zoetropes, which are historical optical and rather primitive devices that display sequences of drawn images in motion. It’s an invention from the 19th century and a forerunner of film technology.

  • Thomas Stellmach
    Director
    Virtuos Virtuell
  • Paul Driessen
    Writer
  • Thomas Stellmach
    Writer
    Quest, Virtuos Virtuell
  • Thomas Stellmach, Germany
    Producer
    Quest, Virtuos Virtuell
  • Ignace Collin, Belgium
    Producer
  • Beo Brockhausen
    Music
  • Janek Czechowski
    Character Design
  • Christian Wittmoser
    Foley, Sound Design and Mix
  • Nancy Bens
    Animation
  • Kris Van Alphen
    Animation
  • Aike Arndt
    Background
  • Project Type:
    Animation, Short
  • Genres:
    Animals, Country Life, Eat/Drink, Ecology, Economy, Educational, Environmental, Humour, Macabre, Nature, Youth, Fairy Tale
  • Runtime:
    9 minutes 45 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    September 18, 2021
  • Production Budget:
    181,000 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Germany
  • Country of Filming:
    Belgium, Germany
  • Language:
    No Dialogue
  • Shooting Format:
    digital
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Golden Kuker Sofia, International Animation Film Fest
    Sofia
    Bulgaria
    May 28, 2022
    Grand Prix
  • Athens Animfest
    Athens
    Greece
    March 20, 2022
    2. prize, best animation
  • Mediawave Festival
    Ravazd
    Hungary
    May 7, 2022
    Animation Award, best storyteller
  • T-Short Animated Film Festival
    Karlsruhe
    Germany
    March 27, 2022
    1. Prize, best humorous film
  • Flickerfest, Australian International Short Film Festival
    Sydney
    Australia
    January 21, 2022
    world premiere
    FlickerKids showcase programme (out of competition)
  • Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival
    Clermont-Ferrand
    France
    January 24, 2022
    national premiere
    Youth Audience Competition
  • Bamberger Kurzfilmtagen
    Bamberg
    Germany
    January 24, 2022
    Official Selection
  • Curtas Vila do Conde
    Vila do Conde
    Italy
    July 17, 2022
  • Cartoons on the Bay

    Italy
    June 5, 2022
Distribution Information
  • Thomas Stellmach
    Distributor
    Country: Germany
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - Thomas Stellmach

Thomas Stellmach (*1965) is animation director, producer, author and creator of short films. Amongst international awards for his independent productions, he received the Academy award (Oscar®) for the stop-motion film QUEST in 1997. He studied animation at the Kassel Academy of Arts. After that he founded the animation studio “Lichthof – Film & Animation” in Kassel and produced for TV and advertising. In 2009 Stellmach has left the company to focus his work on artistic animation projects. His productions include stop-motion, 2D/3D animation, pixilation, experimental animation and stereoscopic. He holds animation workshops and is the presenter of his Trickfilm-Show.

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Director Statement

How to tell a story with a Zoetrope?

Since my ‘Spinning Animation Workshops’ I’m fascinated by the hypnotic impact of Zoetropes. I developed a performance, which presents the workshop results in an audio-visual life show on eight optical devices like Zoetropes or Praxinoscopes to the public. Zoetropes were invented around 1834, before the film was. They bring cartoon figures on a paper stripe to life as if by magic. They show simple repetitive movements of one second such as walking, waving, hopping, opening and closing etc..

While working on my workshops I came up with the question, how do I tell a story with Zoetropes?

End of 2016 Paul Driessen, my former teacher of animation, and I decided to develop a story for my new film, which can be told by Zoetropes. The fairy tale LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD seems to be perfect for us. With it we could play with animation cycles like walking thru the wood, looking out the window, saying goodbye at the door, looking at grandpa’s hut etc..

Doing things again and again defines the storyline in THE SAUSAGE RUN, which poses the critical question, how much of our unconscious habits and common expectations determines our live.