Stephen Quay
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.
48 directing credits · 10 acting credits
Directing · 48
Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life
1995
Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass
2025
The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes
2005
Street of Crocodiles
1986
The Doll's Breath
2019
The Sandman
2000
Alice in Not So Wonderland
2007
The Comb
1991
Maska
2010
Anamorphosis
1993
Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies
1988
This Unnameable Little Broom
1985
The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer
1984
Stille Nacht III: Tales from Vienna Woods
1993
Stille Nacht I: Dramolet
1988
The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer: Prague's Alchemist of Film
1984
In Absentia
2000
The Phantom Museum: Random Forays Into the Vaults of Sir Henry Wellcome's Medical Collection
2003
Nocturna Artificialia
1979
Unmistaken Hands: Ex Voto F.H.
2013
The Summit
1995
Inventorium of Traces
2009
Stille Nacht IV: Can't Go Wrong Without You
1993
Stille Nacht V: Dog Door
2001
Stille Nacht II: Are We Still Married?
1992
VadeMecum
2021
Sonic Cinema: Sparklehorse
2001
The Eternal Day of Michel de Ghelderode
1981
Through the Weeping Glass: On the Consolations of Life Everlasting (Limbos & Afterbreezes in the Mütter Museum)
2011
11 Preliminary Orbits Around Planet Lem
2021
Quay Brothers: The Short Films 1979-2003
2004
Phantom Museums: The Short Films of the Quay Brothers
2007
Ghosts and Whispers
2022
Janáček: Intimate Excursions
1983
The Art Teacher from Drohobycz: Bruno Schulz
2022
The Brothers Quay Collection: Ten Astonishing Short Films 1984-1993
2000
Rain Dance
1988
Igor Stravinsky: The Paris Years Chez Pleyel 1920-1929
1982
Kinoteka Ident
2009
Songs for Dead Children
2003
Eurydice: She, So Beloved
2007
Tales of the Brothers Quay
1987
A Fratricide
1981
Punch and Judy: Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy
1981
The Calligrapher
1991
Wonderwood: Comme des garçons
2010
Ex Voto
1989
Kieślowski by Quays
—
Acting · 10
Quay
2015
The Art of Time
2009
The Falls
1982
The 1000 Eyes of Dr Maddin
2015
The Bug Trainer
2009
The Music of Zdeněk Liška
2017
Inside The Institute
2010
The Phantom Museum: Random Forays Into the Vaults of Sir Henry Wellcome's Medical Collection
2003
The Making of "The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes"
2006
Behind the Scenes with the Quay Brothers
2011