Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven" – cinematically visualized and interpreted by Hannes Rall – rises from the unfolding drawings like a bouquet of mourning and passions. Certainly neither the poet nor the film-artist felt his creative wings clipped by the somewhat modest myth of a raven bringing the author the message that his beloved is dead. But perhaps the film-maker was thinking of one of those still, enchanted winter nights with backlit, empty fields still dappled with traces of snow, and the raven folk beaking their stories of how Edgar Allan Poe suffered over lost Leonore. We see their shining black plumage again in the woodcut-style drawings, sharp against the white background. The expressive graphics and brilliant animation give the film its intense atmosphere.

"Der Rabe" is a visual interpretation of Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven". A lonely man mourning his lost love has a strange visit in the middle of the night. "Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore!'"

The "German Animated Film" exhibition and the screenings recontribute to presenting German culture, and above all the successful animated film business, internationally – this specifically cinematic art, which has often attracted more international acclaim than full-length films.
The presentation has evolved into a significant, manifold artistic overview of German animation film authors, ranging from classic animation techniques to computer technology. The combination of media presentation and the exhibition of artistic material offers an insight into how the films are made, as well as the aesthetic experience.

It is soon clear what an extraordinary degree of concentration is needed for an animation artist to create a film. This cinematic form cannot afford to waste a second or create a superfluous image, because every moment, image by image, has to be created manually or electronically, at a minimum of 12 frames per second.
When we look at the films in this show, we are aware of a panorama of private myths, of world angst, criticism of the age, of politics and art. The archives of life and personal experience always produced rich pickings for film stories.

Hannes Rall: Der Rabe, 1999