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Having been selected by Danny Lennon from more than 650 submissions from around the world, the nine entries selected for the 2008 NFB online competition can be viewed below. Voting ends on May 19, 2008.
EDIT: Voting has ended and the videos have been removed. The winner will be announced on May 21, 2008.
For those of you following the WIRE, you'll know that I am a great admirer of the TED(Technology. Entertainment. Design) series of lectures. Each year a TED prize is issued from a broad range of disciplines and in 2006, the winner was filmmaker Jehane Noujaim who was granted $100,000. Her aspiration was to create a day which would bring the world together through film and thus Pangea Day was born.
Here is the English trailer(Click HERE for additional languages):
In a world where people are often divided by borders, difference, and conflict, it's easy to lose sight of what we all have in common. Pangea Day seeks to overcome that -- to help people see themselves in others -- through the power of film.Jehane Noujaim is also the director of the highly recommended film Control Room, a documentary on Al Jazeera putting forward an alternative vantage point on the Iraq War and media in general.
On May 10, 2008 -- Pangea Day -- sites in Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Rio de Janeiro will be linked to produce a 4-hour program of powerful films, visionary speakers, and uplifting music. The program will be broadcast live to the world through the Internet, television, digital cinemas, and mobile phones.
Pangea is the name of the original super-continent which contained all the world's land mass before the continents started splitting apart 250 million years ago. We're launching Pangea Day with the vision that the people of the world can begin to overcome their divisions, and that the power of film can help make it possible.
Movies can't change the world. But the people who watch them can.
A wolf and a deer in an immaculate closed gallery are the basis for Mircea Cantor's Deeparture. Having read several interpretations of the meaning of this short film, I was surprised at the variation in the reactions and how far they diverged from my own feelings about this piece.
For me, the idea that the wolf will attack the deer is only an extreme unlikelihood but the tension is there. Between the two, there is a relationship that is palpable and easy to identify in the stark environment. The feeling that it evokes for me is that of being a stranger, a foreigner, an outsider with an indefinable unease that I feel is evoked with Deeparture. They both have fears of the environment in which they are placed while at the same time holding the mantles of hunter and hunted; or do these even matter anymore?
It's an interesting work. You can view it below. I am curious to hear what you think...
Born in Cluj, Romania in 1977, Mircea Cantor left home in 1999, hitch-hiking across Europe until settling in France. Despite this, a high proportion of his works continue to have strong ties to Romania. He is co-editor of the artist-run magazine, Version. Living and working in Paris and Cluj, Mircea is represented by Galerie Yvon Lambert in Paris & New York, and Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv.
Women film makers have had something of a raw deal and to address this, Miranda July(pictured below) has created the concept that is Joanie 4 Jackie. It's something of a video chain letter among lady directors. It seems to be restricted to those in the US though I may be reading the somewhat oblique descriptions from the wrong perspective.
Drawing further, selections of films are compiled in Co-star Tapes which are curated by inspired, cinematic women. The latest curator is Astria Suparak (pictured in the post title) and her Joanie 4 Jackie Co-star Tape is the third titled Some Kind of Loving featuring works from Karen Yasinsky, Jane Gang, Jennifer Reeder, Stephanie Barber, and Peggy Ahwesh.
The Yerba Buena Center for The Arts in San Francisco will be featuring some work and an "explanatory video" regarding Joanie 4 Jackie in their exhibition, The Way That We Rhyme: Women, Art & Politics until June 29, 2008. Chain letters and Co-star Tapes are for sale and are available by emailing joanie@bard.edu.
Links:
Joanie4Jackie
Miranda July
Astria Suparak
Yerba Buena Center for The Arts
Working on their 17-minute stop motion short Madame Tutli-Putli for five years, filmmakers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski have created a masterpiece in their first professional film. Described as an "existential journey", it is set in an exquisite, lovingly crafted and animated world which is both beautiful and beastly. It is ripe with meaning and full of heart.
Produced by the National Film Board of Canada, Lavis and Szerbowski's Clyde Henry Productions created the film with Jason Walker(special visual effects), Laurie Maher(choreography/costume design), David Bryant(musical direction/sound design), and Jean-Frédéric Messier(musical director). The film has won a string of awards and was nominated for an Oscar.
Ideally suited to a big screen, screening schedules as well as the DVD are available on the official site.
Having only recently graduated in animation at MOME in 2005, Hungarian Éva Magyarósi's film Hanne which was submitted as part of her thesis was awarded at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen. Her collection of work is full of beguiling imagery which is generously showcased on her homepage. The animation below is Szerelemhús (Flesh of Love), created by Éva in 2003 (courtesy of Daazo, the European Short Film Centre.)
Yannick Puig has created this surreal and soothing video for Kwoon's "I lived on the moon" from the album Tales & Dreams. A nice diversion for a Sunday morning.
This is an interesting little morphing animation of female portraits over 500 years of western art. The effect is quite disturbing.
In the second of the Blackheart Gang interviews, we have Jannes Hendrikz whose responsibility is in essence to make Ree Treweek's drawings dance to Markus Wormstorm's music. He is the compositor, 2d-animator, cinematographer, and creative director of the team. Jannes recently left Blackginger (who created the 3d elements and provided the hardware required for The Tale of How) to freelance.
As well as providing generous answers to my queries, he has also kindly provided some exclusive stills and moving images from early in the production of The Tale of How.
The Tale of How is free to download HERE and more information is available in previous posts HERE, HERE and HERE. See the first installment of the Blackheart Gang interviews with Ree Treweek HERE.
From the perspective of artistic direction, is the look from the Tale of How something you want preserved or do you see the project evolving over time?
I am very much into spontaneous, interactive expression of our art forms. I see The Household project as a growing interactive medium. It goes wherever it needs to go and I follow. It’s about being attentive to its needs and letting it grow.
How important was Ringo as a foundation for the work you did in The Tale of How? What did you learn while working on it? And is Ringo set in The Household?"We did have a few creative hiccups and we had to move on--we had to compromise, we had to collaborate."
Jerome Olivier's "Missing Pages" first appeared in 2005 though not in its intended form. After having taken a break from production, he was horrified to find the decision had been made to release the existing "preview" version. In time, with the support of a friend, he returned to the project completing the material to his own specifications for presentation on the festival circuit and compilation DVDs.
Among the ingenious features of the short is the fact that it is entirely compiled of animated still images; it's a kind of photoplay with animated elements. The effect is incredibly effective. I rank Jerome's creation alongside The Blackheart Gang's The Tale of How and Aleksandr Petrov's work in terms of innovation. It's approach to narrative is both inspirational and accomplished. And like The Tale of How, it has been achieved within the confines of a low budget while outstripping its high budget contemporaries.
Inspired by Chris Marker's La Jetee, the film tells the tale of Professor Tanokura who invents a time machine leading to some unexpected consequences. See the trailer below or visit the offical site for the recommended Quicktime version. Follow the listed links to view the entire film.
This strange short is a little parable about a girl who gets a horse for her birthday and whose neglect leads to tragedy. Curiously, the horse in question is played by a woman in a corset suspended from the ceiling in a harness. See it HERE in Quicktime.
Having seen the short before reading director Nicole McDonald's background, it was a real surprise. Despite the piece being in Italian with subtitles, Nicole was born in Massachusetts and "raised in the hyper-competitive world of junior women's dirt bike racing". The majority of her work is commercial with Una Favola being one of her independent projects.
There are things I like about this piece such as "the stain of guilt", the overall tone of the story, the non sequitor representations, and the colour palette but I can't seem to shake the feeling that the commercial work is creeping into her personal work.
That said, it works for me. It's like a twisted little music box with a dominatrix ballerina. I'm interested to hear your opinions on this one.
EDIT: Here is the low quality, flash version...
Following on from my previous post, this is Part 2 of Lasse Gjertsen's video for Giovanni Sollima's performance of Sogno ad Occhi Aperti. It's set in the most surreal and beautiful manicured forest outside Milan. It also continues the trend of smoking musicians. Enjoy.
I'm afraid this is more advertising, but there is something incredibly captivating about these surreal and sometimes sinister commercials. From Japan, these spots advertise Tarako's noodles and cod roe(eggs) and have become something of a national obsession. It isn't entirely new though it does have incredible staying power.
For those who find this captivating, it might be worth looking up Takashi Miike's The Happiness Of The Katakuris which has a similar surreal, musical feel though the promised menace does on many occasions come to fruition. (Miike is best known in the west for Audition and Ichi The Killer)
Also, don't miss the links below which are equally surreal. The Tarako site also features downloads and addition clips. What I find interesting is not just the surreal visuals, but the gambit of emotional hues these clips manage in a fractional space of time.
Watch this spot with it's melancholy and haunting opening that quickly turns...
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