Animal Adaptations: Film Adaptations of Literary Animal Characters

Our grant project focuses on animal adaptations—and the title itself carries a double meaning. While we are interested in film adaptations of literary works featuring animal characters (from the silent era to Hollywood’s Golden Age), we are even more concerned with how the shift in medium affects their portrayal. In other words, we examine how animals are translated to the reality of the big screen: what is emphasized, altered, or lost due to technical constraints.

As a group of researchers, we offer a range of approaches and perspectives, focusing on sound, humour, the materiality of animal bodies, and other aspects of book-to-screen adaptation. Join us to see how literary animals work on a film set, and discover whether some things can’t be fully captured on paper or on screen.

The event is part of the grant project “Animal Adaptations: Film Adaptations of Literary Animal Characters, from the Silent Screen to Hollywood’s Golden Age” led by prof. ucz. dr
hab. Justyna Włodarczyk and funded by the National Science Centre (NCN), Poland.