OTTAWA INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FESTIVAL WRAP-UP - PART ONE
[Our thanks to Kier-La Janisse for the following.]
Another Ottawa International Festival of Animation has wrapped, and a recent move to the vicinity has finally allowed me to attend the legendary event, the largest in Canada of its kind, and renowned internationally as a launching pad for many up-and-coming animators. The industry section of the festival alone - a robust conference that facilitates interaction between animation studios, schools and budding talent - makes the festival unique, but at the head of it all is Artistic Director Chris Robinson, eccentric animation scholar whose curatorial preference for underdog animation ensures that OIAF stays vital and exciting.
Going through last year's schedule, I was a bit worried that the programming was going mainstream, but any doubts were allayed by this year's feature competition (which forewent some obvious choices - the new Svankmajer, for example - in favour of more personal, low budget productions) and various indie-focused retrospectives.
Winnipeg animator Mike Maryniuk assembled a block of outsider animation from his hometown (this year's Canadian Cultural Capital) that brought together early works by Ed Ackerman and Greg Zbitnew, Twitch favourite Leslie Supnet, art stars Matthew Rankin, Myles Langlois and Daniel Barrow, mainstays John Paizs and Robert Pasternak and a host of others whose self-driven work is a far cry from more well-known efforts of Cordell Barker and Richard Condie. The fest was abuzz with the pleasures of particular retro, which will likely make stops in other Canadian cities as the year wears on.
Equally impressive was the multi-faceted retrospective of Japanese independent animation meant as a tie-in to Chris Robinson's latest book, Japanese Animation: Time Out of Mind. Aside from a tribute to genre giant Osamu Tezuka, Robinson himself curated a selection of films from the back catalogues of Kei Oyama and Atsushi Wada (whose work shares a tragicomic sensibility with that of the aforementioned Leslie Supnet), while guest curator Nobuaki Doi offered a two-part survey of post-50s Japanese artisans called You Need to Be Alone Sometimes: The Secret World of Japanese Indies. Showcasing work that stretched through the past half century, starting with the claymations of Fusako Yusaki and the seminal puppet films of Kihachir Kawamoto up to the orderly cuteness of Akino Kondoh and contrasting chaos of Keita Kurosaka, Doi's program highlighted the overwhelming diversity of animation in a context often associated with popular anime. Many of these artists are (thankfully) getting more ink on these shores of late with Naomi Hocura's similar Seconds Under the Sun program, which toured select Canadian cities earlier in the year, and Image Forum's 2006 Tokyo Loop project, which commissioned 16 independent Japanese animators and manga artists to create new works in honour of the 100th anniversary of animated film.
Alongside his representation in the short film program, Keita Kurosawa's long awaited feature Midori-ko finally made its appearance, and while it whizzes by at a mere 55 minutes, I don't know that I could have taken any more of its relentless psychosis! In Kurosaka's distinct visual style - more reminiscent of Dutch painting than traditional anime - grotesque amorphous creatures digest and excrete eachother in this surreal, sepia-toned story about a young girl who dreams of finding a magic vegetable that will bring an end to the rampant starvation in 21st century Tokyo. Like his seemingly-epic short film Worm Story (1989), this is a jaw-dropper that just gets crazier by the second, without ever being grating or immature.
Emerging with the grand prize for Best Animated Feature was British vet Phil Mulloy's Goodbye Mr. Christie, a bizarre minimalist satire that follows the familial disintegration of the wilfully-obtuse Mr. Christie after he and his neglected wife both fall under the sexual spell of the itinerant sailor Ramon. Mr. Christie becomes the object of worldwide media attention when he is caught with his pants down (literally) on national television, prompting a Dantean descent into the netherworld and the inevitable dissolution of the entire universe. Mulloy's animation style is sufficiently primitive (black shadow faces against contrastingly gaudy wallpaper patterns) to label him an outsider artist if the self-conscious satire weren't so evident. A feature follow-up to Mulloy's award-winning 2006 12-part series The Christies, (which walked away with top honours from Ottawa that same year), I wasn't entirely taken with its visuals or convinced by its humour, both of which seemed dull and repetitive after a while, especially when compared to his earlier, more textured work like the Intolerance or Cowboys series.
My favourite of those fighting it out in the feature competition, Brent Green's Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then, was unexpected indie magic. An unapologetically homemade romance inspired by the true story of a carpenter whose constant construction on a rickety labyrinthine house was misled attempt to cure his wife's cancer, Gravity... is a beautiful ode to obsession and faith. The film is obviously a labour of love in more ways than one; director Green built a scale model of the house in his own backyard to re-enact the tragic story in stop-motion, and the self-reflexive narration alternates between desperate and hysterical, with the narrator clearly driven to tears at times (which was admittedly contagious). It's an incredibly moving spectacle and think-piece alike, shot in part by experimental filmmaker Jem Cohen (Benjamin Smoke, Fugazi: Instrument), and aside from festival screenings, Green and company have been carting around the entire set to perform theatrical versions with live music! If this film plays in your town please do yourself a favour and check it out.
Stay Tuned for the second half of our OIAF Report, where we'll talk about the best of the Short Film Competitions and the Canadian Short Film Showcase!
Review by Kier-La Janisse
Another Ottawa International Festival of Animation has wrapped, and a recent move to the vicinity has finally allowed me to attend the legendary event, the largest in Canada of its kind, and renowned internationally as a launching pad for many up-and-coming animators. The industry section of the festival alone - a robust conference that facilitates interaction between animation studios, schools and budding talent - makes the festival unique, but at the head of it all is Artistic Director Chris Robinson, eccentric animation scholar whose curatorial preference for underdog animation ensures that OIAF stays vital and exciting.
Going through last year's schedule, I was a bit worried that the programming was going mainstream, but any doubts were allayed by this year's feature competition (which forewent some obvious choices - the new Svankmajer, for example - in favour of more personal, low budget productions) and various indie-focused retrospectives.
Winnipeg animator Mike Maryniuk assembled a block of outsider animation from his hometown (this year's Canadian Cultural Capital) that brought together early works by Ed Ackerman and Greg Zbitnew, Twitch favourite Leslie Supnet, art stars Matthew Rankin, Myles Langlois and Daniel Barrow, mainstays John Paizs and Robert Pasternak and a host of others whose self-driven work is a far cry from more well-known efforts of Cordell Barker and Richard Condie. The fest was abuzz with the pleasures of particular retro, which will likely make stops in other Canadian cities as the year wears on.
Equally impressive was the multi-faceted retrospective of Japanese independent animation meant as a tie-in to Chris Robinson's latest book, Japanese Animation: Time Out of Mind. Aside from a tribute to genre giant Osamu Tezuka, Robinson himself curated a selection of films from the back catalogues of Kei Oyama and Atsushi Wada (whose work shares a tragicomic sensibility with that of the aforementioned Leslie Supnet), while guest curator Nobuaki Doi offered a two-part survey of post-50s Japanese artisans called You Need to Be Alone Sometimes: The Secret World of Japanese Indies. Showcasing work that stretched through the past half century, starting with the claymations of Fusako Yusaki and the seminal puppet films of Kihachir Kawamoto up to the orderly cuteness of Akino Kondoh and contrasting chaos of Keita Kurosaka, Doi's program highlighted the overwhelming diversity of animation in a context often associated with popular anime. Many of these artists are (thankfully) getting more ink on these shores of late with Naomi Hocura's similar Seconds Under the Sun program, which toured select Canadian cities earlier in the year, and Image Forum's 2006 Tokyo Loop project, which commissioned 16 independent Japanese animators and manga artists to create new works in honour of the 100th anniversary of animated film.
Alongside his representation in the short film program, Keita Kurosawa's long awaited feature Midori-ko finally made its appearance, and while it whizzes by at a mere 55 minutes, I don't know that I could have taken any more of its relentless psychosis! In Kurosaka's distinct visual style - more reminiscent of Dutch painting than traditional anime - grotesque amorphous creatures digest and excrete eachother in this surreal, sepia-toned story about a young girl who dreams of finding a magic vegetable that will bring an end to the rampant starvation in 21st century Tokyo. Like his seemingly-epic short film Worm Story (1989), this is a jaw-dropper that just gets crazier by the second, without ever being grating or immature.
Emerging with the grand prize for Best Animated Feature was British vet Phil Mulloy's Goodbye Mr. Christie, a bizarre minimalist satire that follows the familial disintegration of the wilfully-obtuse Mr. Christie after he and his neglected wife both fall under the sexual spell of the itinerant sailor Ramon. Mr. Christie becomes the object of worldwide media attention when he is caught with his pants down (literally) on national television, prompting a Dantean descent into the netherworld and the inevitable dissolution of the entire universe. Mulloy's animation style is sufficiently primitive (black shadow faces against contrastingly gaudy wallpaper patterns) to label him an outsider artist if the self-conscious satire weren't so evident. A feature follow-up to Mulloy's award-winning 2006 12-part series The Christies, (which walked away with top honours from Ottawa that same year), I wasn't entirely taken with its visuals or convinced by its humour, both of which seemed dull and repetitive after a while, especially when compared to his earlier, more textured work like the Intolerance or Cowboys series.
My favourite of those fighting it out in the feature competition, Brent Green's Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then, was unexpected indie magic. An unapologetically homemade romance inspired by the true story of a carpenter whose constant construction on a rickety labyrinthine house was misled attempt to cure his wife's cancer, Gravity... is a beautiful ode to obsession and faith. The film is obviously a labour of love in more ways than one; director Green built a scale model of the house in his own backyard to re-enact the tragic story in stop-motion, and the self-reflexive narration alternates between desperate and hysterical, with the narrator clearly driven to tears at times (which was admittedly contagious). It's an incredibly moving spectacle and think-piece alike, shot in part by experimental filmmaker Jem Cohen (Benjamin Smoke, Fugazi: Instrument), and aside from festival screenings, Green and company have been carting around the entire set to perform theatrical versions with live music! If this film plays in your town please do yourself a favour and check it out.
Stay Tuned for the second half of our OIAF Report, where we'll talk about the best of the Short Film Competitions and the Canadian Short Film Showcase!
Review by Kier-La Janisse
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