Seasons [Films in Progress]

Maria Lassnig’s very first film, Seasons uses stop motion to animate cutouts of drawings and handmade textured papers that illustrate the changing flora and fauna over the calendar year. Using found illustrations and photographs as backdrops, her dynamic visual elements animate the passage of time; whirling leaves and buzzing insects give way to quiet winter—signified by a soft white sheet draped across the frame—while chirping birds and jumping fish suggest spring’s thaw. Originally, the film was combined on a single reel with Encounter, and was screened this way regularly until the 1980s, when Lassnig ultimately chose to separate the two films. (Jocelyn Miller)

Final cut by Maria Lassnig. Color correction completed posthumously by Mara Mattuschka and Hans Werner Poschauko.
Soundtrack: “High Society” by Jelly Roll Morton’s New Orleans Jazzmen, from Lassnig’s own music collection.

Digitization by the Austrian Film Museum. This film was preserved and restored by the Maria Lassnig Foundation in collaboration with the Austrian Film Museum.