Stephen Quay
Directing
1947-06-17 · Norristown, Pennsylvania, USA
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.
Filmography
Sledgehammer Revealed
2026 · Movie
Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass
2025 · Movie
The Art Teacher from Drohobycz: Bruno Schulz
2022 · Movie
Ghosts and Whispers
2022 · Movie
11 Preliminary Orbits Around Planet Lem
2021 · Movie
VadeMecum
2021 · Movie
The Doll's Breath
2019 · Movie
The Music of Zdeněk Liška
2017 · Movie
The 1000 Eyes of Dr Maddin
2015 · Movie
Quay
2015 · Movie
Unmistaken Hands: Ex Voto F.H.
2013 · Movie
Through the Weeping Glass: On the Consolations of Life Everlasting (Limbos & Afterbreezes in the Mütter Museum)
2011 · Movie
Behind the Scenes with the Quay Brothers
2011 · Movie
Wonderwood: Comme des garçons
2010 · Movie
Maska
2010 · Movie
Inside The Institute
2010 · Movie
The Art of Time
2009 · Movie
Kinoteka Ident
2009 · Movie
The Bug Trainer
2009 · Movie
Inventorium of Traces
2009 · Movie
Eurydice: She, So Beloved
2007 · Movie
Alice in Not So Wonderland
2007 · Movie
Phantom Museums: The Short Films of the Quay Brothers
2007 · Movie
The Making of "The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes"
2006 · Movie
The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes
2005 · Movie
Quay Brothers: The Short Films 1979-2003
2004 · Movie
The Phantom Museum: Random Forays Into the Vaults of Sir Henry Wellcome's Medical Collection
2003 · Movie
Songs for Dead Children
2003 · Movie
Sonic Cinema: Sparklehorse
2001 · Movie
Stille Nacht V: Dog Door
2001 · Movie
The Sandman
2000 · Movie
In Absentia
2000 · Movie
The Brothers Quay Collection: Ten Astonishing Short Films 1984-1993
2000 · Movie
Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life
1995 · Movie
The Summit
1995 · Movie
Stille Nacht IV: Can't Go Wrong Without You
1993 · Movie
Stille Nacht III: Tales from Vienna Woods
1993 · Movie
Anamorphosis
1993 · Movie
Stille Nacht II: Are We Still Married?
1992 · Movie
The Comb
1991 · Movie
The Calligrapher
1991 · Movie
Ex Voto
1989 · Movie
Rain Dance
1988 · Movie
Stille Nacht I: Dramolet
1988 · Movie
Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies
1988 · Movie
Tales of the Brothers Quay
1987 · Movie
Street of Crocodiles
1986 · Movie
This Unnameable Little Broom
1985 · Movie
The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer
1984 · Movie
The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer: Prague's Alchemist of Film
1984 · Movie
Janáček: Intimate Excursions
1983 · Movie
The Falls
1982 · Movie
Igor Stravinsky: The Paris Years Chez Pleyel 1920-1929
1982 · Movie
A Fratricide
1981 · Movie
Punch and Judy: Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy
1981 · Movie
The Eternal Day of Michel de Ghelderode
1981 · Movie
Nocturna Artificialia
1979 · Movie
Kieślowski by Quays
Movie