The Insects' Christmas

Polish/Russian filmmaker Ladislaw Starewizc started out making his insect film projects with live insects, but they tended to die under harsh lighting. He then turned insect carcasses into puppets controlled by wires for a few movies. By the time he made The Insect's Christmas, he had graduated to stop-motion animation, which he learned from French animation. All the copies of this movie on YouTube are labeled as 1913, but Wikipedia says it was made in 1911 under the Russian title Rozhdyestvo Obitatelei Lyesa. Maybe it took a couple of years to get an English version of the intertitle cards. (via Nag on the Lake)

See also: The Cameraman's Revenge.