The
Halas&Batchelor Collection
Vivien Halas
Awards
History
Joy Batchelor
Awards text here
Welcome to the Halas & Batchelor Collection website. Here you can explore the Halas & Batchelor studio, with details about the studio’s history, biographies of key personnel, awards and an extensive range of film clips.
Founded in 1940, Halas & Batchelor Cartoons was the largest and most influential animation studio in Western Europe for over 50 years. In that time, they made over 2,000 films and earned an international reputation for fine animation, extending the medium to explain complex ideas with clarity and humour. Their films reflect the social and style changes of half a century and are here for you to discover.
1954
in Budapest, 1938
1963
1954
Halas & Batchelor retrospectives
In 2020, there was a special live event on Facebook to mark the 80th anniversary of the studio, hosted by the London Animation Club. You can still view it on the LAC YouTube channel, by clicking here. This was followed by the premiere of Richard Shaw's documentary, 'The Animated World of Halas and Batchelor' on SkyArts.
The Hungarian Cultural Centre then ran a live broadcast in July of the documentary 'The Animated World of Halas and Batchelor' followed by a Q&A session chaired by Martin Pickles from LAC, with Vivien Halas, daughter of Halas & Batchelor, her brother Paul Halas, Animator Joanna Quinn and Jez Stewart, Curator of Animation for the BFI. The online event was held as part of the Insiders/ Outsiders Festival, and you can watch the Q&A online here.
In 2021, MoMA in New York screened 'Automania 2000' as a central part of their wonderful exhibition, Automania. The show closed in January 2022. Here are just a few images.
Halas & Batchelor shorts will feature in the Hungarian National Film Institute Classic Film Marathon.
The screening of 19 September will be a double feature of John Halas and Gyula Macskassy's oeuvre: the pioneers of animation in Hungary and Britain