LIAF International Programme 5
The fifth of the competition programmes for the London International Animation Festival took place on August 30th at the Barbican Centre, London – featuring yet another set of exciting and stunning animated shorts, including the acclaimed Lipsett Diaries by Canadian animator Theodore Ushev and the adult comedy Bertie Crisp.
‘Bertie Crisp’ (Francesca Adams, UK, 2011) http://bertiecrisp.co.uk/
Featuring the voice talents of Mark Benton, Kathy Burke and Tamsin Grieg, Bertie Crisp is an adult comedy animation based on creator Francesca Adam’s holidays in Skegness. Bertie, a ‘put-open half bear half panda’, who lives in permanent resident’s section of a holiday caravan park with his sociopathic rabbit wife Grace. Grace wants a baby, and she wants it now – which is bad news for their neighbours Isabella and Geoff, and their litter of kittens. The 2D animation is brilliantly rendered, with characters that are well-formed with buckets of personality and back story. Written by Francesca and Laura Poliakoff, Bertie Crisp has the potential to be developed into a longer-running series or web cartoon. Definitely a favourite.
‘Dove Sei, Amore Mio’ (Vejko Popovic, Croatia, 2011)
A little old lady lives her solitary life in a lonely room, engulfed by memories of her younger days with the love of her life, who was taken by the war. There is a sense of nostalgia seeping through the dark shadows and muted colours of this atmospheric animation, and the sequences lead you to wonder whether the old lady is hiding something.
Dove Sei, Amore Mio by Vejko Popovic (Croatia, 2011) (Photo courtesy of LIAF)
‘The Last Norwegian Troll’ (Pjotr Sapegin, Norway, 2010)
One of my first fairy tales was the classic Norwegian Three Billy Goats Gruff. This puppet animation retells the story from the perspective of the troll, the last of his species left to walk the earth. While he longs for his youthful days spent amongst satyrs and mermaids, the troll is seen adapting very badly into modern day environment as he gets sugar-addicted, overweight and increasingly irritated. The film is narrated by Swedish actor Max von Sydow, whose impressive voice gives a epic sense of history when he divulges that when trolls get insulted, they go underwater and turn to stone, hence: ‘Norway is built upon sleeping trolls.’
‘The Holy Chicken of Life and Music’ (Nomint, France, 2010)
The Holy Chicken is a giant two-headed chicken (a ‘magnificent beast’) that represents all dual aspects of our existence, from life and death, art and science, love and regret, left brain/right brain, day and night, factory and theatre – with one singular consistent theme of music running through this slick and colourful high end CGI animation.
‘Old Fangs’ (Adrien Merigeau & Alan Holly, Ireland, 2010)
In a moody animated world, three friends venture into the forest in tense silence, as a young wolf confronts his father for the first time since childhood. The film completely envelopes you with its rich visuals and intriguing storyline. Adrien said, ‘The choice of having animal characters made sense for the story, especially the theme about growing up away from your roots. For the backgrounds, we did everything on paper with coloured inks, and it was really great not to do much computer work on them.’
Strange Invention by Dino Krpan (Croatia, 2011) (Photo courtesy of LIAF)
‘Strange Invention’ (Dino Krpan, Croatia, 2011)
This black and white film portrays the true story of a fictional character who invented animated print. ‘Made in animated print technique’, we follow the life of this fictional inventor who has the bright idea of moving pictures on pieces of paper, such as creating the first ever flip book, which escalate into more complicated animation techniques.
‘The Wonder Hospital’ (Boemsik Shimbe Shim, USA, 2010)
The Wonder Hospital is an award winning film (also featured in the SIGGRAPH Highlights programme), about a young girl’s surreal experience in an otherworldly hospital and her quest for cosmetic surgery. With Alice in Wonderland motifs peppered across the film (yellow humanoid road, ruby slippers, stripy Burtonesque socks, rabbits), the hospital is a bizarre and commercially clinical setting. Cosmetic surgery is presented as mass production, as evidenced by the vending machine that produces masks. The atonal soundtrack further heightens the feeling of distortion and mutilation as it explores skewed perspectives on body image, and also emotional cosmetic surgery.
‘House Bunny’ (Gina Kamentsky, USA, 2010)
Another offering from the wonderful world of Gina Kamentsky, House Bunny can be summed up in one word: ‘bouncy.’ It’s a joyful, fun-filled romp of exuberant primitive scratchy drawings juxtaposed with clips of movie trailer reels, set to a score of cut and paste audio assemblage by The Tape-beatles.
House Bunny by Gina Kamentsky (USA, 2010) (Photo courtesy of LIAF)
‘Lipsett Diaries’ (Theodore Ushev, Canada, 2010)
Snagging both the judges and audience vote for best film of this session, Lipsett Diaries is a critically acclaimed and award winning animated documentary about Arthur Lipsett (1936-86), a troubled Canadian experimental filmmaker. The film is based upon lost diaries that charts his descent into depression and madness, and his eventual suicide. Animated by hand-painting the frames and using computer editing to link the images, the project came about when Ushev found ‘a small notebook, blue, handwritten “Lipsett” on it. I found everything inside this small notebook,’ he said. ‘Everything and nothing. Trying to re-construct someone’s life through those notes seemed impossible. This is how I decided to do this film. With this movie, we imagine that those [lost] diaries have been recovered. From the dust and the garbage, saved accidentally…’
The Wall of Art 