European Short Debuts - animation 2
I, the Ladder and Charlie
The work of a young artist is basically like a sketch of a film and simultaneously, maybe even subconsciously and not necessarily in accord with the intentions of the author, goes back to the beginnings of animated production, to its characteristic simplicity.
Kenji Matsushita
Lives in Italy. Studies art and performs his animated films. During his studies he completed I, the Ladder and Charlie.
2010 Ja, drabina i Charlie / Io, la scala e Charly / I, the Ladder and Charlie (short, anim.)
The Man with the Cardboard Head
Anthony had a terrible flaw: he only tells the truth, nothing but the truth. His family tried everything to cure him, but in vain. At grown up, he looks for a watchmaker who gives him a cardboard head to replace his own, while he tries to fix it. With the new head, nothing will be the same anymore.
Pedro Lino
Born in 1980, works on animation movies, illustration and graphic design. He has won, among others awards, the Prémio Jovem Cinesta Português, at the Cinanima Festival 2004.
2010 Człowiek z kartonową głową / O homem de cabeça de papelão / The Man with the Cardboard Head (short, anim., co-dir.)
Luís da Matta Almeida
Working in animation since 1987, he is producer and director of Zeppelin Filmes, membership of European Cartoon Board, Vice-President of APPA (Portuguese Animation Producers Association) and President of Casa da Animação. He produced, directed and distributed animated films and series, which won 102 international awards including the Cartoon d’Or in 2000.
2010 Człowiek z kartonową głową / O homem de cabeça de papelão / The Man with the Cardboard Head (short, anim., co-dir.)
Poodle
A cartoon and a cut-out animated joke sometimes referring to the surrealist aesthetics. The combination of different animation techniques resulted in a work breaking the film illusion and perfectly fitting into an occasionally absurd story of a dog, a man and a magazine.
Carl Roosens
Carl Roosens likes telling stories. He’s an illustrator. He founded Nos Restes publishing in 2007, making fanzine books, exhibitions and concerts.
2010 Pudel / Caniche / Poodle (short, anim., co-dir.)
Noémie Marsily
Noémie Marsily is born in 1983 in Belgium. She is painter, illustrator and filmmaker. She’s also part of the collective Nos Restes in Brussels, which is experimenting around books, narration, pictures, highlighting the diversity of practices.
2010 Pudel / Caniche / Poodle (short, anim., co-dir.)
Broken Wave
Broken Wave is an animated short that visualizes the notion of remembering, understanding that the slightest things can trigger a memory. The film expresses someone else’s experiences just by listening to their interpretation of the event.
Chris Allen
During his time at college he started to look at animating the mind; making some short animations about dreams and the thought of being trapped. As he says: Directing my film Broken Wave in my final year of the Arts Institute at Bournemouth has allowed me to develop this love of expressing inner mind states this time by visually interpreting another’s thoughts. Within my second year at the Arts Institute at Bournemouth I worked on Fish, an animated short about a little girl and her quest to find happiness, winner of Animex 2D animation category.
2009 Rozbita fala / Broken Wave (short, anim.)
I Am Round
A plastic clay tale on alienation, discrimination and an attempt to adapt a round being to a square environment calls to mind the An Adventure in Stripes by Alina Maliszewska. Adamson’s film is thematically related with Maliszewska’s film yet different as to the manner of approaching the problem. The rawness of the Pole’s picture is replaced by the screen sweetness, which causes the reception distance not as much as shrink but to be simply bridged.
Mario Adamson
Was born in 1976 in Stockholm. His roots are in two cultures, due to his Swedish mother and Greek father. He has studied film at Stockholm Film School and sound for film at Dramatiska Institutet in Stockholm. In 1999 Mario started Medusa Productions and has since then worked primarily as a freelance sound designer/field recordist/composer on a great number of features, documentaries and shorts.
2011 Jestem cały / Jag är rund / I Am Round (short, anim.)
The Blindness
The narrator of the short animation shares his memories of the loss of sight. His tale is accompanied by spots filling the screen, blurs, lack of sharpness attempting to mirror the experience of a man who is gradually losing the ability to see the world.
Boris Labbé, Marion Bricaud
Boris Labbé and Marion Bricaud are student arts the Ecole des Métiers du Cinéma d’Animation (EMCA) from 2008 till 2011, after having studied Graphics Arts.
2010 Ślepota / Aveuglement / The Blindness (short, anim.)
A Desert Day Dream
A man, deranged in the forest, haunted by darkness and finally turned into a wolf, gets lost in the desert of his dreams.
Tobias Köber
Born in 1989 in Augsburg. Between 2005 and 2007 he was gaining skills in the area of design at Fachoberschule in Augsburg. Since 2009 he has been studying illustration at Hamburg University of Applied Sciences.
2010 Pustynny sen na jawie / A Desert Day Dream (short, anim.)
Old Fangs
In the Old Fangs animated people are replaced by animal characters whose personality and problems refer to the problems of the human world in an unambiguous way. Adrien Merigeau’s and Alan Holly’s film is not at all, as it could be expected after the first fragments, a carefree story but a gloomy and drastic one on complicated human relations between a father and a son.
Alan Holly
Animator and filmmaker from Ireland. He made his student film Tógtha in 2004 and has since been working variously as writer, director, character animator and storyboard artist. He directed his first professional short film The Red Ball in 2007. In 2009 he made a one minute short, Dialogue, as well as co-directing Adrien Merigeau’s Old Fangs. He co-directed the music video, Scattered, with Adrien Merigeau in 2010. He currently directing the short film At the Surface.
2009 Stare kły / Old Fangs (short, anim., co-dir.)
Adrien Merigeau
Adrien is a talented young director whose short film Old Fangs, produced by Cartoon Saloon, is currently enjoying the global festival circuit. Adrien studied at EMCA in Angoulême and has worked as a director, concept designer, art director and illustrator. He was a key member of the art direction team on the Oscar nominated The Secret of Kells, and helped create the unique visual style for the film.
2009 Stare kły / Old Fangs (short, anim., co-dir.)
DA-18
DA-18 is a film of a young director with education implying his interest in the technological aspect of a film work. He is responsible for the final shape of DA-18, where technology serves the reinforcement of the impact of the film’s content. His almost 4-minutes’ long work is an expression of admiration for the opportunities opened for the artist by the language of an animated film and the respect for modernist tradition, where the content is the foundation of a work.
Martin Grözinger
Born and raised in a town near to Stuttgart and Ludwigsburg. After School he Studied Graphic-Design, and two years in an Advertising Agency and a small Animation Studio, he desided to get into Filmmaking and learn about Animation and Visual Effects at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in Ludwigsburg.
2010 DA-18 (short, anim.)
Heavy Heads
Covered with different shades of gray the black comedy on loneliness and the surprising relation of a woman with a… fly traveled around the world visiting significant film events including festivals in Berlin, Sundance and Edinburgh.
Helena Frank
Born in 1981 in Linköping (Sweden). For several years she has studied art and animation and between 2006 and 2010 she attended the National Film School of Denmark. Heavy Heads was completed for graduation.
2010 Ciężkie głowy / Heavy Heads / Heavy Heads (short, anim.)