The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Krabat is a beggar boy. One night he hears a call in a dream and follows it to a mill in the marshes. The mill belongs to a one-eyed sorcerer. Krabat starts work there alongside eleven other apprentices; they grind flour by day and learn black magic by night. Every year on Christmas night one of the boys has to face the master in a duel. Nobody wins, because only the master knows the secret word. Karel Zeman's animation is adapted from Otfried Preussler's novel. Seventy-three minutes. It is drawn in Zeman's own technique, in silhouettes that look like engravings. It has the look of a children's film and the mood is dark from beginning to end.