SHORTS - Director's Perspective: The Animator

14A Rating

The great thing about animation is that anything is possible. The following films are a small sample of the breadth of animation, and represent a fraction of the unlimitless genre. The films here were chosen for particular reasons – they are award winning filmmakers or films, student films, experimental film, and one in particular that is the largest ever globally collaborated on animation project ,which was developed through Facebook!

Spare Change
DIRECTOR Ryan Larkin/Laurie Gordon, Canada, 2008, 7 MIN
A street beggar (voiced by Larkin), takes us from the sidewalks of a wintry Montreal day to the gates of heaven and hell and back. The film features original works by Larkin and was completed by Gordon and a team of dedicated young animators following Larkin's death in 2007.

Kanizsa Hill
DIRECTOR Evelyn Lee, USA, 2008, 7 MIN
A man is shot and can only survive as a head and a body who exist independently from one another. The forgetful body desperately collects souvenirs, while the head is lost in a series of illusions.

Skhizein
DIRECTOR Jérémy Clapin, France, 2008, 14 MIN
French with English subtitles
Having been struck by a 150-ton meteorite, Henry has to adapt to living precisely 91cms from himself.

Please Say Something
DIRECTOR David O'Reilly, Germany/Ireland, 2009, 10 MIN
A troubled relationship between a Cat and Mouse set in the distant Future.

She Who Measures (Ona koja mjeri)
DIRECTOR Veljko Popovic, Croatia, 2008, 7 MIN
This timely and provocative animation asks: Are we slaves to our society or is there an escape after all?

The Tale of Little Puppetboy (Sagan om den lille Dockpojken)
DIRECTOR Johannes Nyholm, Sweden, 2008, 19 MIN
Swedish with English subtitles
Puppetboy is sweating floods of clay, preparing for a lady´s visit. It gets even more nervous when she arrives.

Inukshuk
DIRECTOR Camillelvis Théry, France, 2008, 9 MIN
On the last polar day, up on the howling ice, a little Inuk man and a mischievous bear see their white world metamorphosed into a huge whale ocean of darkness.

The Idiot Stinks
DIRECTOR Helder Sun, USA, 2008, 2 MIN
Animation Angst. Media, Martians and Miscommunication.

The Spine
DIRECTOR Chris Landreth, Canada, 2009, 11 MIN
Oscar® -winning director Chris Landreth’s The Spine is a poignant story of redemption that takes us into the relationship between a man and a woman trapped in a spiral of mutual destruction.

Sea Dog’s Devotion (Seemannstreue)
DIRECTOR Anna Kalus, Austria/Germany, 2008, 11 MIN
This silent animation film develops its form and its theme loosely according to the macabre and subtly necrophilic poem Seemannstreue by Joachim Ringelnatz, in which the first-person narrator tells about burying his deceased bride Alwine in the cold ground, then digging her up, and so on.

Live Music
DIRECTOR Yair Landau, USA, 2009, 6 MIN
Set in a musical instrument store, the story follows Riff, a rock ‘n’ roll guitar, who falls in love to the wrong song but ends up with Vanessa, the classical violin of his dreams. LIVE MUSIC is the result of a globally collaborative effort that was organized through a Facebook application. Created by Mass Animation (founded by former Sony Pictures Vice Chairman Yair Landau), over 58,000 + from 101 countries participated. In the end 51 became finalists from 17 different countries and worked on the final product.