Franz Kafka

As Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning from unsettling dreams, he finds himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin…

In an ominous Lisbon courtyard where the last executioner of the kingdom once lived, an accident is waiting to happen. After a patient game of who's observing who, four characters will collide with dire consequences. Inspired by the novel The Damned Yard by Nobel Prize-winning Bosnian writer Ivo Andrić, this is a masterclass in slow cinema, a pure 16mm cinematic pleasure by André Gil Mata.

Being the story of a critter and his "perfect" burrow. A stop-motion animation by Forrest Rice. Based on the original story by Franz Kafka.

A boy tries to find out what happened in the old local synagogue. Obsessed, he is chasing something he never saw and does not pay any attention to what is happening around him. Inspired by Franz Kafkas unfinished novel.

Franz Kafka’s novel moved to today’s Japan

The curious adventure of Mr Rotpeter, a monkey turned into a man. Starting from Kafka's novel 'A Report to an Academy', Antonietta De Lillo's movie sets Mr Rotpeter's adventure in a nowadays Naples. Its peculiar storytelling flows between a faraway past and our recent reality. Mr Rotpeter's interest is strongly connected to human nature, society, politics, inner behaviours and emotions. Antonietta De Lillo's short movie will drag us into a very unique atmosphere, causing us a sense of disorientation and commotion.

Adapted from the short story by Franz Kafka, The Judgment is a psychological drama exploring themes of alienation, memory, and the lines between fantasy and reality. The film follows Georg Bendemann, a young merchant living 1900s Prague, who is struggling to maintain balance in an ever changing world. As his situation deteriorates due to complicated familial relationships, we are compelled to question the very nature of what we are seeing.

A wordless man stages an unexplained hunger strike and the people surrounding him exploit his silence to further their own cause...

This short follows Gregor Samsa from Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis". It is set in the modern world and shows the events leading up to Kafka's metamorphosis. Gregor is a young man working for a textile company, who breaks down mentally after his job becomes overwhelming. He slowly loses his sanity and touch with reality.

‘The Great Wall has been completed at its most southerly point.’ So begins Kafka’s short story ‘At the Building of the Great Wall of China’, and so, at Europe’s heavily militarised south-eastern frontier, begins this film. In the shadow of its own narratives of freedom, Europe has been quietly building its own great wall. Like its famous Chinese precursor, this wall has been piecemeal in construction, diverse in form and dubious in utility. Gradually cohering across the continent, this system of enclosure and exclusion is urged upon a populace seemingly willing to accept its necessity and to contribute to its building.

A mongolian interpretation of Kafka's "The Castle".

KAFKA'S THE BURROW tells the story of a man's "metamorphosis" (as Kafka would put it) in a rapidly changing and increasingly isolated world. A man (Axel Prahl), who has seemingly achieved everything, ensconces himself in his burrow, a fortress-like apartment complex. But no matter how hard he tries to keep the outside world at a distance, he gets more and more entangled in his own web of fear and paranoia: those outside know he is there, they want him, they want his wealth, and they are inevitably going to get him ...

A fragmented view of contemporary Spain, drawing conclusions about the persistence of the human condition, strangeness, and the chaos within relationships.

Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, wakes up in his bed to find himself transformed into a large insect. After the metamorphosis, he becomes confined to his room and neglected by his family.

A Kafka dialogue is read by actors in Straub's own apartment in Paris.

A series of 15 prints inspired by "A Report for an Academy" by Franz Kafka, provokes this look at the life of the artist and social activist Francisco Toledo.

A hapless country doctor describes with breathless urgency a night-time summons to attend a young patient. Events soon take on a surreal aspect as "unearthly horses" transport him instantaneously to the bedside. The doctor, preoccupied with personal distractions and grievances against those he is employed to care for, fails to find what is revealed to be a vile, fatal wound. He is humiliated by the villagers, who are "always expecting the impossible from the doctor," and doomed to an endless return trip, losing everything.

Franz Kafka short film

An adaptation of Kafka's "A Country Doctor".

Short film release

Based on Kafka's story of the same name, "The Metamorphosis" tells the story of a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, who wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a gigantic insect.

Set in a city both past and present, on a deserted street where only the distant sounds of life blow by. The Hunger Artist stands alone, locked in his cage. Once famous and adored by the crowds, he now performs alone.

Three stories. We see, but little is explained. In "The Married Couple," a salesman pays a call on an old customer who is with his wife in the upstairs bedroom of their ill adult son. Another salesman may beat him to the punch, but not before disorienting changes. A maid scrubs the floor. "In the Penal Colony": a man arrives at a penal colony where an officer demonstrates a bizarre apparatus, one that punches a message into the skin of a prisoner strapped beneath it. Who will be punished? In "Fratricide," a man is murdered at night by someone he knows well. A woman grieves.

An experimental study about the love between Franz Kafka and his adored Felice based on their correspondence.

Michael Haneke's adaptation of Franz Kafka's unfinished novel Das Schloss. K arrives in a remote village a stranger. In attempting to establish himself there, he enters the nightmarish world of the castle bureaucracy.

In director Norith Soth's modern retelling of Franz Kafka's classic tale, young Tom Gregor wants nothing more than to support and serve his family -- a mission that falters when he's overcome by a mysterious illness. With his parents too old to work and his younger sister turning to prostitution, things go from bad to worse when Tom's abusive boss fires him -- but then continues to show up at his house -- and his health fails to improve.

An animation based on a short story by Franz Kafka about a country doctor interrupted by an alarm clock on a quiet home evening. In a bomb-ravaged room are waiting a dying child and a group of black market traders playing cards.

The second part of the Kafka trilogy. In the evening, the fluffy bookmaker arrives at his home, in the elevator engine room, and finds an immense, humming egg on his table.

Vladimír Michálek chose an unconventional adaptation of Franz Kafka's novel for his feature debut. Artistically reminiscent of the classic films of Karel Zeman, the director reinterpreted this dark story of a man vainly seeking a place in a rigidly ordered society by changing the desperate conclusion into a happy end. The film provided Czech comedian Jirí Lábus with a new kind of role: that of the despotic uncle of a main hero Karel Rossman (Martin Dejdar).

The mice people live in an enormous theatre, expectantly awaiting the ambiguous show by Josefina.

Based on the novel of the same name by Franz Kafka.

Closely based on Franz Kafka's book "Das Schloß", the movie shares the same action on a land surveyor who is called to a village to do a job that no one seems to have ordered. Once there, he takes up the struggle against bureaucracy emanating from the castle.

Joseph K. awakes one morning, to find two strange men in his room, telling him he has been arrested. Joseph is not told what he is charged with, and despite being "arrested," is allowed to remain free and go to work. But despite the strange nature of his arrest, Joseph soon learns that his trial, however odd, is very real, and tries desperately to spare himself from the court's judgement.

Free adaptation based on Kafka's "The Metamorphosis". The action is in Praga occupied by Germans, at home of a Jew family (maybe the Kafka's). Novel's room of Gregor Samsa is replaced by an enormous library.

Happened in Prague on a cold February evening, 1917: the poor violinist's atrium runs out of coal and his dancing mouse becomes ill. The coal bucket is empty, and without sparing any effort, the faithful bucket rides its master through the air towards the home of the carbon trader...

TV film of Steven Berkoff's stage adaption of Kafka's famous story in which a young man, who is the sole financial supporter of his family, awakes one morning in the form of a giant dung beetle and thereby becomes a nuisance to his family, who must now learn to rely upon themselves.

Based on Franz Kafka's famous novel, director Jaakko Pakkasvirta created this interpretation of the woebegone Josef K., who is trapped in an ever-increasing labyrinth of double talk and bureaucratic nonsense in his efforts to reach the castle. As Josef seeks to make an appointment to see the ruler Herr Klamm inside his inaccessible abode, he becomes enmeshed in abuse from lowly villagers and bureaucrats alike. His endless false starts toward the castle's enigmatic interior are partly offset by a few sexual encounters but nothing alleviates his role as a victim of forces beyond his control.

A young man, recently arrived in New York from Europe, becomes swept up in a series of events that are beyond his knowledge or control.

KARL, a young immigrant, lives with his uncle in New York. He jealously watches over the education of his nephew. A friend, Mr. PALLUNDER invites KARL to spend a night at his house. Despite strong opposition from his uncle, Karl agrees. Mr. PALLUNDER and Karl cross New York while metal workers' demonstrations take place (black and white archives: aerial views of New York, protesters and police charges, neon lights at night). Mr. PALLUNDER introduces his daughter CLARA who announces the unwanted visit of Mr. GREEN. When the meal is over, CLARA trains KARL and is provocative and provocative against the silly and fierce young man. He wants to return to his uncle's home, but Mr PALLUNDER finds excuses not to accompany him. Mr. GREEN asked him to come and join him at just midnight and say goodbye to CLARA. She begs him to play the piano.

Based on Kafka's 1922 short story about a hunger artist.

An adaptation of Franz Kafka's "The Trial"

Essay film about Franz Kafka's novel "Amerika".

An animation made of beach sand on a piece of glass - directed by Caroline Leaf. Based on Kafka's The Metamorphosis.

A Swedish adaptation of the Franz Kafka novella. Gregor Samsa, wakes one morning to find himself transformed into a large, monstrous beetle.

An adaptation of Franz Kafka's classic story about Gregor Samsa, a man who awakes and sees himself suddenly turned into a repulsive insect.

A foreign journalist arrives on a small Pacific island 200 miles off the coast of South America. Once a leper colony, the island was later transformed into a prison and then, under U.N. mandate, made into an independent republic. Yet despite democratic structures, the inhabitants--who speak a strange dialect composed of Spanish and English--still obey the old prison rules. After sending back detailed accounts of the torture and repression seen everywhere, the journalist realizes that she"s fallen into the trap created for her by the islanders: lacking natural resources, the island"s main export is news. The clearest anticipation of Ruiz"s later European work, The Penal Colony is a powerful document of the tensions and contradictions in Chile in the months before Allende"s electoral victory.

A man comes to a small village to begin his new job as an attendant at the nearby castle. But everybody in the village claims that he surely must be mistaken, there is no need for an attendant at the castle.

An nobleman question an aged grave warden, whose sickness seems to be due to the ghosts who haunt his workplace.

Josef K wakes up in the morning and finds the police in his room. They tell him that he is on trial but nobody tells him what he is accused of. In order to find out about the reason for this accusation and to protest his innocence, he tries to look behind the façade of the judicial system. But since this remains fruitless, there seems to be no chance for him to escape from this Kafkaesque nightmare.

Short adaptation based on Kafka's "Metamorphose"

A short film based on a story by Franz Kafka. Two men meet to resolve an issue, but are unable to do so due to a series of adverse circumstances.

A story about growing up, making decisions, and the daily cruelty of the world, based on an unfinished novel by Franz Kafka. An older servant seduces Karl Rossmann in his family home. To avoid scandal, Karl’s parents send him to America, where he is thrown into the vortex of a strange and ruthless world. He begins an endless journey in search of his place in an unknown country.