Freeze frame
Freeze frame: the most absurd technique since the invention of the moving image. Through an elaborate process of duplicating the same image over and over again, it creates the illusion of stillness. In this stop motion film, identical figures perform the hopeless task of preserving blocks of ice, like archivists. The repetitive movements reanimate the animals captured inside.
Germany, Belgium, 2019, 5, Direction: Soetkin Verstegen, Production: Soetkin Verstegen.
Soetkin Verstegen is an independent filmmaker and animator from Brussels. In addition to her personal work, she works as a freelance animator for stop motion films and series.
I'm Here
A film about caring for an elderly, paralyzed woman.
Poland, 2020, 15, Direction: Julia Orlik, Production: Agata Golańska.
Julia Orlik is a student at the PWSFTviT in Łódź, specializing in animated film and special effects.
Push This Button if You Begin to Panic
Bartholomew Whisper has an unusual illness, but that doesn’t stop him from seeing the quiet beauty around him.
United Kingdom, 2020, 13, Direction: Gabriel Böhmer, Production: Samantha Monk.
Gabriel Böhmer is a UK-based artist from Zurich, interested in memory and the absurd. He left a career in management consulting following the release of his novel Beetle Days.
Flow State
Influenced by 1970s theories of the Flow State, the film features one cartridge of vintage Super 8 film-stock, each frame scratched and painstakingly coloured by hand by Sarahjane Swan. The soundtrack was mostly improvised with both Swan and long-time collaborator in Avant Kinema, Roger Simian, playing detuned guitars, which the pair attacked and manipulated with drumsticks.
United Kingdom, 2020, 8, Direction: Roger Simian, Sarahjane Swan, Production: Roger Simian, Sarahjane Swan.
Scottish artists Sarahjane Swan & Roger Simian have collaborated since 2009 on a significant body of interdisciplinary works: analogue film, digital video, Indie songs, installation art, photography and experimental writing, most recently under the name Avant Kinema. The duo’s experimental films – which often utilise long-expired filmstocks, which they process, handcraft and telecine at home – have screened around the world. Music by Swan and Simian has aired widely on BBC national radio and other stations, often as The Bird And The Monkey.
Yes People
Six people. Living in one building but following different paths. Each gets through the day in their own way – and with their own voice. A semi-silent animated comedy with dramatic undertones.
Iceland, 2020, 8, Direction: Gísli Darri Halldórsson, Production: Arnar Gunnarsson, Gísli Darri Halldórsson.
Gísli Darri Halldórsson was born in Iceland in 1978 and graduated with a BA from the Irish School of Animation in 2007. Gísli has been a professional animator since 2007 working in England, Ireland, Germany and Iceland on feature-films, short-films, tv-series, commercials and music videos.
Have a Nice Dog!
Trapped in Damascus, surrounded by war, a lonely man becomes increasingly lost in his fantasies of fleeing and in inner dialogues with his dog.
Germany, Syria, 2020, 13, Direction: Jalal Maghout, Production: Karsten Matern.
Jalal Maghout is an independent filmmaker from Syria, who began his film career in 2010 after receiving his Bachelor’s degree in visual communication from the University of Damascus. He has produced several short animated films that have been shown at festivals around the world. Jalal completed his master’s degree in animation directing at the Film University Babelsberg in 2019.
How to Disappear
Is it possible to desert in a shooter game? Along this question, “How to Disappear” reflects on war and game, discipline and disobedience. For the history of defiance is as old as the history of war – and yet the act of desertion goes beyond the game’s space of action. Shot in the martial yet picturesque war landscapes of the online shooter game “Battlefield V”.
Austria, 2020, 21, Direction: Michael Stumpf, Leonhard Müllner, Robin Klengel, Production: Robin Klengel.
Robin Klengel is an artist, illustrator and cultural anthropologist who has been vice chairman of Forum Stadtpark, an interdisciplinary art and culture space in Graz, Austria since 2017. Leonhard Müllner is a visual artist and media researcher who studied visual art and media art and is currently writing his PhD on a cultural studies. Michael Stumpf was born in Wels, Austria, in 1985 and has studied philosophy at the University of Vienna. He is currently taking a degree in Media Art and Culture Theories at the University of Art and Design in Linz. He works as a cultural theorist, artist and designer.
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