Stop-motion animation gallery

Some very nice quality video clips here to view.

Quite a few of them have sound but some are silent, which are fun to leave looping while you have your own soundtrack musics going.

A little history about Eastern European stop-motion animation:
(from the website)

European puppet animation springs from an ancient tradition of live puppet theater, best represented perhaps by punch and judy. While these shows are enjoyed by children, the themes are often quite adult... similar to the plays of Shakespeare which are rife with violence and sexual depravity but presented in an intelligent artistic fashion.

One of the things that make these traditional puppet shows so fascinating is the old-world craftsmanship... techniques handed down generation after generation using handmade tools. The heads are carved from wood and carefully painted and costumes are elaborately crafted from multiple layers of rich embroidered fabrics and fine ornaments. It all serves to create a self-contained miniature world of strange haunting beauty. The puppets were the livelihood of their creators... puppeteers would lovingly craft their own puppets and upkeep them, and travel with their wheeled carts from village to village putting on performances and hoping to make some money. The craft would be handed down through the family.

Then with the dawn of the moving image came trikfilm techniques... the magical effects photography techniques of Melies and the Lumiere Brothers and others, which very shortly resulted in animation, both cartoons and stop motion. This is where our tale begins...

via filmfatale