Directing

Stephen Quay

17.06.1947 Norristown, Pennsylvania, USA 58 credits

Biography

Stephen Quay was born in 1947 in Norristown, Pennsylvania, USA. He studied illustration at the Philadelphia College of Art and later continued his education at the Royal College of Art in London, where he met his twin brother Timothy and began collaborating in animation. Together, they founded Atelier Koninck and produced their first experimental short films in the late 1970s. Throughout his career, Stephen has directed and co-directed short films, feature films, and stop-motion projects, including Nocturna Artificialia (1979), Street of Crocodiles (1986), Institute Benjamenta (1995), and The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes (2005). His work is characterized by dreamlike, detailed, and symbolic worlds, often using dolls and carefully crafted objects to create surreal and unsettling atmospheres.

Career

1979 2026

11 Acting 48 Directing 58 Movies 0 Series

1970

1980

1990

2000

2010

2020

Filmography

Sledgehammer Revealed

Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass

Director, Editor, Sound, Animation, Screenplay

The Art Teacher from Drohobycz: Bruno Schulz

Ghosts and Whispers

Director, Animation

11 Preliminary Orbits Around Planet Lem

The Doll's Breath

The Music of Zdeněk Liška

The 1000 Eyes of Dr Maddin

Acting: Self, Thanks

Unmistaken Hands: Ex Voto F.H.

Director, Animation, Writer

Behind the Scenes with the Quay Brothers

Through the Weeping Glass: On the Consolations of Life Everlasting (Limbos & Afterbreezes in the Mütter Museum)

Director, Editor, Sound, Animation

Wonderwood: Comme des garçons

Director, Writer

Inside The Institute

The Art of Time

The Bug Trainer

Acting: Self - stop-motion animator

Inventorium of Traces

Director of Photography, Director, Editor, Sound Designer

Eurydice: She, So Beloved

Set Designer, Director, Editor

Alice in Not So Wonderland

Cinematography, Director, Writer

Phantom Museums: The Short Films of the Quay Brothers

The Making of "The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes"

The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes

Production Design, Director, Writer

Quay Brothers: The Short Films 1979-2003

The Phantom Museum: Random Forays Into the Vaults of Sir Henry Wellcome's Medical Collection

Acting: Librarian, Director

Songs for Dead Children

Sonic Cinema: Sparklehorse

Stille Nacht V: Dog Door

Director, Writer

Director, Animation

The Brothers Quay Collection: Ten Astonishing Short Films 1984-1993

Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life

Director, Writer

Stille Nacht IV: Can't Go Wrong Without You

Camera Operator, Director, Animation

Stille Nacht III: Tales from Vienna Woods

Camera Operator, Director, Animation

Art Direction, Decorator, Camera Operator, Director, Editor, Animation

Stille Nacht II: Are We Still Married?

Camera Operator, Director, Animation

Art Direction, Camera Operator, Director, Editor, Animation, Writer

The Calligrapher

Director, Animation

Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies

Decorator, Cinematography, Director, Animation

Stille Nacht I: Dramolet

Tales of the Brothers Quay

Street of Crocodiles

Production Design, Director, Editor, Animation, Writer

This Unnameable Little Broom

Director of Photography, Director, Writer

The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer

Director of Photography, Director

The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer: Prague's Alchemist of Film

Janáček: Intimate Excursions

Acting: Ipson Fallari

Igor Stravinsky: The Paris Years Chez Pleyel 1920-1929

Director, Animation

Punch and Judy: Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy

Director, Animation

The Eternal Day of Michel de Ghelderode

Director, Writer

Nocturna Artificialia

Cinematography, Director

Kieślowski by Quays