The adventures of Mark Twain

It has now become a pleasant custom for ASIFA Italia to collaborate with the Museo Nazionale del Cinema at the Incanti festival, offering the public an evening on “animated figure cinema”, or animation with stop motion puppets.

For an edition of the festival that moves between utopia and dream, reality and fiction, we have chosen to take a leap into the colorful 80s when the animators, without green screen and CGI, still did everything by hand with extraordinary results.

The Adventures of Mark Twain is an amusing tribute to American literature, in which the famous writer tries to reach Halley’s comet in an airship. On board, however, three kids sneak in looking for an author: Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and Becky Thatcher. The journey to the comet thus becomes a journey through stories.

Packed with action, rhythm and quotes, The Adventures of Mark Twain is the only feature film directed by Will Vinton, wizard of claymation (plasticine puppets) and author of several music videos, as well as the famous stop motion scenes of Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker .

A little curiosity: Twain was born in 1835, the year of the passage of Halley’s comet, and died in 1910, that is, at the next sighting. 1985, when the film was released, was another comet year. Even 2023, however, is special: on December 9 the comet will be in aphelion, or at the farthest point from the sun.

TICKETS CAN BE PURCHASED DIRECTLY AT THE CINEMA MASSIMO