Animation Extravaganza
This is always a festival favorite! Though it was a bit long…
The Chestnut Tree
Director: Hyun-min Lee
In this sweet, moving story dedicated to the director’s late mother, a mother and daughter create memories under a chestnut tree that stay with the daughter and strengthen her throughout her life. One of my favorite pieces of the program.
Lav Dance and Kidtastrophe
Director: Hilton Tennant
These were two separate one-minute pieces describing words from the lexicon of the airplane travel. A lav dance is the awkward side step a person leaving the bathroom does through those lined up outside as everyone tries not to make eye contact. Kidtastrophe is being trapped on one side by a crying baby and in back by a kid kicking your seat. A funny little series everyone can relate to, though nothing much beyond that.
MovieKiss: The Light Bright Video
Director: Gina Niespodziani
Anybody who remembers Lite Brite will have a special fondness for this. Anyone else will be impressed with the work that went in to it. This stop motion music video is composed of over 2400 photographs of individual lite brite designs. It goes on a little long, but my God the work this must have taken!
Bunnyheads
Director: Jin Blashfield
Stylistically inspired by the work of sculptor Christine Bourdette this film takes viewers to a mechanical basement world reminiscent of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis as we watch figures stamped, shaped, and pounded into existence. Interesting to watch.
Bottled
Director: Jian Lee
Male and female sketches live in separate bottles in an artist’s studio. They notice each other, and the chase begins. Nice animation, very cute simple story.
Bad Habit, Little Rabbit
Director: Christian Effengerger
In a tale sung by an old rabbit in a bar, a young rabbit finds the biggest carrot in the world (a radioactive one at that), but can any of his enthusiastic attempts get it out of the ground? Funny and cute with unexpected consequences.
Director: Y. Grace Park
Dark symbolic journey of a boy traveling from car to car through a train as he grows older and the world becomes colder. The symbolism is straightforward but meaningful and the animation correspondingly intense.
Director: Michelle Meeker
Children answering the question of what they want to do when they grow up are intermingled with stories from the elderly telling what they dreamt of being when they were little and what they ended up becoming. Straightforward animation, thoughtful idea.
Director: James Mullins
A vacationing alien pulls his spaceship over for a sightseeing stop on an asteroid to take some snapshots. While there he sees a group of “flowers” and picks one, a mistake that leads to grief, surprise, and, eventually, revenge. Sounds dark but it’s really pretty funny.
Director: Timothy Heath
Two stuffed friends banter on their way to work. Amusing dialogue and interactions.
Fetch
Director: Dana Dorian
Colin takes his dog Cumberland to the park for a game of fetch. Unfortunately, Cumberland doesn’t particularly like Colin and fetches things that show said dislike, leaving Colin a little worse for wear. “Fetch” was definitely the single funniest film of the program.
Deadly Desire
Director: Darius Hill
A tiny turtle in love trudges through the foreboding woods determined to take a rose to the object of his affection, a hawk. When he shyly, hopefully presents it to her, things don’t go quite as he’d expected. This unforgettable short leaves you wondering if it was done right after the director suffered a really bad breakup. But the best thing was either on purpose or due to some glitch, the two-minute piece was shown three times in a row. Each time the audience was on pins and needles thinking this time the outcome might be different and howled with laughter when it ended and restarted. If it was an accident, consider it serendipity and show it this way in future because it made it the most unforgettable short of the night.
The Adventures of Baxter & McGuire
Director: Mike Blum
Embarrassing yet funny to watch, we have here the humorous buddy banter between the closest of pals, Baxter and McGuire, yes, two testicles. Never thought I’d write that word in a review.
Final Journey
Director: Lars Zimmermann
An assembly line worker dreams of escaping his blasé life with a trip to a tropical planet. When his job offers a competition to said planet, the desperate man takes some unfortunate short cuts to win that eventually have disastrous and self-inflicted results. Even though you know exactly what’s going to happen early on, the story hooks you enough that you want to see it play out. Nice animation too.
The Madness of Being
Director: Hal Miles
The animation of the mechanical character or possibly characters is interesting, but the story is unclear and a little long and without a clear story a little long seems even longer.
Hitler’s Brain
Director: Count Lear Bunda
A guy who spends too much time online awakens with a hangover to find himself as a cursor in a computer world. He has several strange encounters including discovering Hitler’s brain which was apparently uploaded onto the Internet to take over the world from there. The animation is cute enough but it’s not particularly funny or interesting and man is it long and consequently boring. My friend fell asleep.
But Some Are Brave
Director: Grace Channer
Beautifully painted, poetically composed animation with powerful background vocals showing the history of various peoples who have suffered injustice through the ages and how they have survived and overcome. One of the best, definitely worth seeking out.
Lucy Cruell