SIFF: Animation United
The second program of short films for which I had tickets was Animation United on Saturday night, a collection of nine animated shorts. This was a good collection, too. My favorites included:
The Eagleman Stag about an entomologist, his life, how he perceives the passage of time, and the creatures he examines. This one was remarkable in that it was done all in gray scale and it looks to me like it was done with some sort of paper-and-stop-motion technique that creates a beautiful, distinctive look. See a clip here.
Loom, a short animation that features detailed renderings of a moth, a spider, and a spider web. It goes from quite literal to gorgeously abstract as the moth is caught and the spider does what spiders do. It was also handled in a gray-scale palette.
A Lost and Found Box of Human Sensation pushed all sorts of buttons for me. It's a short film about a young man whose father dies of pancreatic cancer. From the blithe doctor who sings and dances his way through figuring out the father's diagnosis through the condolence robots through the vast chasm of grief and back, the film portrays in a very perceptive way the distorted, dramatic experience of grief and healing. Halfway through I realized that I recognized the narrator's voice--it was Ian McKellan. And the young man's voice was Joseph Fiennes. It's a remarkable work; I find myself wondering if it will find its way to the Oscar ballot. See the trailer here.
I don't think I've ever seen a Polish short film that didn't have Something to Say in a Very Literal Way. Paths of Hate is no exception, but it's so beautifully done I kind of don't care. Two World War II fighter pilots engage in a furious, careening dogfight, rendered with comic-book realism and a head-banging soundtrack. See the trailer here.
Sintel might also be titled "A Girl and Her Dragon," which more or less sums up this short film. With the slightly anime look of a modern video game, "Sintel" was created using Blender, an open source rendering program, by an international team of artists. In some ways, it's a typical sort of journey. In others, it's quite lovely and surprising. You can watch the whole thing on YouTube. I suspect you'll enjoy it.
After the program, three of the animators were present for Q&A. Two worked on "Sintel" and one worked on "The Renter" a unpleasant little nightmare of a film about a kid planted with an old woman for a surreal weekend of childcare (which the filmmaker said was based on personal experience, to which I can only say "Whoa"). (Trailer here; it's an award-nominated film, but just didn't do much for me.) All of them were impressively young and offered great insight into their work and their process. Well worth staying for.
The Eagleman Stag about an entomologist, his life, how he perceives the passage of time, and the creatures he examines. This one was remarkable in that it was done all in gray scale and it looks to me like it was done with some sort of paper-and-stop-motion technique that creates a beautiful, distinctive look. See a clip here.
Loom, a short animation that features detailed renderings of a moth, a spider, and a spider web. It goes from quite literal to gorgeously abstract as the moth is caught and the spider does what spiders do. It was also handled in a gray-scale palette.
A Lost and Found Box of Human Sensation pushed all sorts of buttons for me. It's a short film about a young man whose father dies of pancreatic cancer. From the blithe doctor who sings and dances his way through figuring out the father's diagnosis through the condolence robots through the vast chasm of grief and back, the film portrays in a very perceptive way the distorted, dramatic experience of grief and healing. Halfway through I realized that I recognized the narrator's voice--it was Ian McKellan. And the young man's voice was Joseph Fiennes. It's a remarkable work; I find myself wondering if it will find its way to the Oscar ballot. See the trailer here.
I don't think I've ever seen a Polish short film that didn't have Something to Say in a Very Literal Way. Paths of Hate is no exception, but it's so beautifully done I kind of don't care. Two World War II fighter pilots engage in a furious, careening dogfight, rendered with comic-book realism and a head-banging soundtrack. See the trailer here.
Sintel might also be titled "A Girl and Her Dragon," which more or less sums up this short film. With the slightly anime look of a modern video game, "Sintel" was created using Blender, an open source rendering program, by an international team of artists. In some ways, it's a typical sort of journey. In others, it's quite lovely and surprising. You can watch the whole thing on YouTube. I suspect you'll enjoy it.
After the program, three of the animators were present for Q&A. Two worked on "Sintel" and one worked on "The Renter" a unpleasant little nightmare of a film about a kid planted with an old woman for a surreal weekend of childcare (which the filmmaker said was based on personal experience, to which I can only say "Whoa"). (Trailer here; it's an award-nominated film, but just didn't do much for me.) All of them were impressively young and offered great insight into their work and their process. Well worth staying for.