As I sat down to watch the films, I heard them introduced as “…harrowing, I suppose…”. Oh goody. I’m never really ready to be harrowed until after lunch. Below are some highlights:
The Man and the Woman (Maria Mouat / Russia)
A film about a widower, remembering his wife. We follow the two old people through their final days together. There’s a dreamy rather saccharine quality here. It’s really very well done, it’s a beautiful film but I felt rather manipulated by it. To say it’s sentimental would be a gross understatement. It honestly looks like it could have been made at any time in the last fifty years. Call it timeless.
Nicolas & Guillemette (Virginie Taravel / France)
This sweet, charming and funny story of some scoubidou characters on a tabletop. Scoubidou is a plaiting and knotting craft popular in France. Executed in 3D, the strange characters have the slightly mad quality of children’s drawings. Fun.
Chicory 'n' Coffee by Dusan Kastelic
Chicory ‘n’ Coffee (Dusan Kastelic / Slovenia)
There’s a lot of humour in this film based on the poem by Iztok Mlaka, The story of simple peasant couple and a little deception. Very accomplished animation full of character and folksy detail.
La Nostalgia del Sr. Alambre (Jonathan Ostos Yaber / Mexico)
Jonathan Ostos Yaber’s stop motion animation is the story of a simple shadow puppet artist, plucked from obscurity and into the limelight. The animation of the faces sometimes looks like the switching of masks but overall the scale and breadth is impressive. It’s not a happy tale but it does have a twisted beauty about it.
Lögner (Jonas Odell / Sweden)
Jonas Odell mixes rotoscoping, and an eye for graphic design with stop motion and CG to tell three tales of lies big and small. The first episode about a conman is the most successful for me: visually inventive without being obscure. It’s fast moving, dynamic, and diagrammatic. For me the least successful episode was the final story of a gypsy and her difficult life. The central character in the story doesn’t have a face which makes it difficult to connect with her. That said this is a great film full of breathtaking invention and craft.
Screen Test (Steffen Schaeffler / Germany)
This looks great, the Disneyesque animation is beautifully executed and full of pathos but it feels like a showreel piece. It seemed like a scene from a larger story. I wanted more.
So that’s a selection of the selection. Look out for them online and on the festival circuit. Do you have your favourites? Do you disagree? Comment below.
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