Singing Christmas Hedgehogs

Marry Christmas to us all

Swing of Change-2001

Swing of Change from Swing of Change on Vimeo.

Synopsis : New York 30's : Harry, a racist barber changes his mind at the arrival of a magical trumpet in his barber shop ! A Graduation Short Film Directed by : Harmony Bouchard, Andy Le Cocq, Joakim Riedinger, Raphael Cenzi Music by Denis Riedinger

The Picture of Dorian Gray - Thomas Beg, 2011

An 8 Minute adaptation of Oscar Wilde's 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'. My 15 week Major Project at UCA Rochester as part of CG Arts and Animation. Enjoy!

More information

Wing It - 2011

Lovely film about a young man who is trying to be the first man to fly but his efforts are not succesfull until... help comes from the vast and unexplored universe.

This Short Film Animation Project has been created by students of of The Animation School in South Africa to gain vital work experience.

Mourir Auprès de Toi (2011) - Spike Jonze

Mourir Auprès de Toi (To Die By Your Side)

How to punch a whale, or what Dracula has to do with Faulkner and Macbeth.


Spike Jonze: Mourir Auprès de Toi on Nowness.com.

The Hangman (1964)- Maurice Ogden and Paul Julian

"The Hangman" is a poem by Maurice Ogden written in 1951. Its plot concerns a hangman who arrives at a town and executes the citizens one by one. As each citizen is executed, the others are afraid to object out of fear that they will be next. Finally there is nobody remaining in the town except the Hangman and the narrator of the poem.



Les Goldman and Paul Julian directed an animated adaptation of Maurice Ogden’s anti-fascist poem in 1964 and it is narrated by Herschel Bernardi. The film was co-winner of the Silver Sail Award at the Locarno International Film Festival in 1964.

Designed to evoke classic Soviet propoganda, the film vividly illustrates the poem’s theme of creeping fear and social decay invoked by abuses of the State.

The poem

The Tale Of Mr. Rêvus - Marius Herzog (2009)

An amazing film about dreams.
Great animation, story, atmosphere.

"The animated shortfilm “The Tale Of Mr. Rêvus” is my (Marius Herzog) graduation (Diploma) film, produced at the Georg-Simon-Ohm Hochschule – University Of Applied Sciences, Nuremberg.

The challenge of this movie was to reproduce the entire production process of an animated 3D shortfilm by myself including story development, concept design, modelling, rigging, directing, editing, animating, rendering and finally compositing".

Official site

This Way Up - Alan Smith, Adam Foulkes (2008)

“This Way Up” is a 2008 short film directed by Alan Smith and Adam Foulkes. It follows the story of two undertakers trying to deliver a body to a graveyard. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Animated Short Film at the 81st Academy Awards.

Country: UK
Runtime: 9 min

Plot Device-Seth Worley (2011)

Plot Device from Red Giant on Vimeo.

A young filmmaker obtains a mysterious device that unleashes the full force of cinema on his front lawn.
(Don't miss the scene after the credits!)

Director: Seth Worley
Executive Producer: Aharon Rabinowitz
9 min

The Pearce Sisters - Luis Cook (2007)

"An amusingly bleak hearted tale of two weather lashed old spinsters. Lol and Edna Pearce live on a remote and austere strip of coast. They scrape out a miserable existence from the sea. The pearce sisters is a tale of love, loneliness, guts, gore, nudity, violence, smoking and cups of tea".


Directed by: Luis Cook
Written by: Luis Cook, Mick Jackson
Duration: 9 min

Official site
 και εδώ μπορείτε να βρείτε το διήγημα του Μικ Τζάκ­σον (M­i­ck J­a­c­k­s­on) στο οποίο βασίστηκε η ταινία μεταφρασμένο στα ελληνικά.

Dripped - Léo Verrier (2010)

New York 1950. Passionate about painting, Jack visits museums all day long. He steals paintings and takes them home to eat!
A lovely animation about the possible...origin of the famous painter Jackson Pollock.


Duration 8mn
Country France
Release date october 15th 2010
Directed by Léo Verrier
Produced by Jean-François Bourrel / Chez Eddy

Españistán by Aleix Saló

This is a subtitled version of "La burbuja inmobiliaria" by Aleix Saló expaining the recent economic crisis in Spain. This video was created by Aleix Saló of Barcelona, Spain.

Paranoia by TOON SKOOL – INDIA

The concept took birth as a result of the terrorist activities that have disrupted the daily life of the common man. Because of these acts, every man has grown suspicious of even a little strange behavior or mannerism committed by others.

'Paranoia' is an animated short film made by 4 students as part of their final year degree project for Thakur-Toonskool Advanced Animation Academy.

Les Escargots - René Laloux / Roland Topor (1965)

A gardener tries his best to make his salad plants grow. It is only when
he cries that his tears finally water the field and the salads grow huge.
The incredible size attracts a multitude of snails that quickly become
giant too, causing disasters and panic in the nearby city.

René Laloux (July 13, 1929–March 14, 2004) was a French animator and film director.
He was born in Paris in 1929 and went to art school to study painting. After some time working in advertising, he got a job in a psychiatric institution where he began experimenting in animation with the interns. It is at the psychiatric institution that he made 1960's Monkey's Teeth (Les Dents du Singe), in collaboration with Paul Grimault's studio, and using a script written by the Cour Cheverny's interns.

Another important collaborator of his was Roland Topor with whom Laloux made Dead Time (Les Temps Morts, 1964), The Snails (Les Escargots, 1965) and his most famous work, the feature length Fantastic Planet (La Planète Sauvage, 1973).

Laloux also worked with Jean Giraud (Mœbius) to create the lesser known film Les Maîtres du temps (Time Masters) in 1981. Laloux's 1988 film, Gandahar, was released in the US as Light Years. The US version was redubbed by Harvey Weinstein, from a screenplay adapted by Isaac Asimov. The US version was not as successful as the French version, grossing less than $400,000 on its release.[1]

Laloux died of a heart attack on March 14, 2004 in Angoulême, Charente, Poitou-Charentes, France.
(Wikipedia)

Filmography

Feature Films

• Fantastic Planet (1973)
• Time Masters (1982)
• Gandahar (1987) (released in the U.S. in bowdlerized form under the title Light Years)

Short Films

• Tick-Tock (1957)
• Les Achalunés (1958)
• The Monkey's Teeth (Les Dents du singe) (1960)
• Dead Times (Les Temps morts) (1964)
• The Snails (Les Escargots) (1965)
• The Play (1975)
• Quality Control (1984)
• How Wang-fo Was Saved (Comment Wang-Fo fut sauvé) (1987)
• The Captive (La Prisonnière) (1988)
• Eye of the Wolf (L'Œil du loup) (1998) (screenwriter only)

Rain Town - Hiroyasu Ishida (2010)

In this town, since who knows when, rain has never　stopped.
Residents moved out to suburbs and high ground around "rain town."
People's memories are now deeply submerged.
But into this forgotten rainy town sometimes, someone wanders.

Graduation film by Hiroyasu Ishida (Tete) Kyoto Seika University.
10 min

Matatoro - Mauro Carraro, Raphaël Calamote, Jérémy Pasquet (2010)

MATATORO from Matatoro Team on Vimeo.

The hermetic world of bullfighting and its public, here reinvented and reinterpreted.

Directed by Mauro Carraro, Raphaël Calamote, Jérémy Pasquet

Original music composed by Pierre Manchot

Produced by Supinfocom Arles - 2010

The Incident at Tower 37 - Chris Perry (2009)

Tower 37 siphons every drop of water from a once-pristine lake, that is, until the station's steward realizes that it is slowly destroying an entire ecosystem.

The Incident at Tower 37 (2009) is a ten-minute HD animated film, written and directed by Chris Perry and produced within the collaborative animation curriculum at Hampshire College.


For more information visit http://www.bitfilms.com

“The Forbidden Forest” - Keith Rondinelli

"The Forbidden Forest is inspired by the work of Arthur Machen, who was a Welsh writer of supernatural fiction from the late 19th and early 20th century, specifically his classic tale “The White People”."

More information in CartoonBrew

NZ Book Council - Going West

The book in the animation is Maurice Gee's,a distinguished fiction writer from New Zealand.

Film for New Zealand Book Council

Produced by Colenso BBDO
Animated by Andersen M Studio

Animated History of Poland-Tomek Bagiński (2010)

Animated History of Poland

A tale about 1,000 years of Polish history in the format of a musical-visual poem. The story starts with the beginning of the Polish nation in the ninth century, and shows the most important events and processes that took place until the 21st century.

Poland
Running time: 8’51″
Directed by Tomek Bagiński (Fallen Art)

Inception - Done in 60 seconds - Wolfgang Matzl (2011)

Inception is one of the finalists of the film competition "Done in 60 Seconds" by Jameson Whisky in Germany.

Using Victorian prints, Wolfgang Matzl created this stop-motion version of Christopher Nolan’s Inception for a contest that required filmmakers to produce a movie with a maximum length of 60 seconds.

PIN POINT-James Kim

This decidedly creepy animated short takes audiences inside a gloomy orphanage where an evil caretaker seasons the children’s gruel with poison. A newly arrived little girl decides to take matters into her own hands—aided by an unlikely secret weapon. 

Play Pin Point

More information in short of the week

Chienne d'Histoire (Barking Island) - Serge Avédikian-2010

A great film.
The English translation, “barking island,” fails to capture the meaning of the original French, literally “dog of history.”

Synopsis: Constantinople, 1910. Too many stray dogs in the city streets. The newly established government, influenced by the model of Western society, tries to find out from European experts how to get rid of them before deciding, alone, to deport thirty thousand dogs to a deserted island off the coast of the city.





Director of the film: "Of course, the hidden meaning of the film is the Armenian Genocide" - said Avedikian during his last visit to Armenia. "And we can not forget that the same Young Turks organized, and committed horrific murder of 30,000 Armenians in 1909 alone," - added the director.





Palme d'Or - Short Film, 2010

Title:Barking Island
Original title:Chienne d'histoire
Year:2010
Director - Scenario:Serge Avedikyan
Paintings: Thomas Azuélos
Composer:Michelle Kars
Country:France
Duration:00:14:27
Translation:Not required

Official site

Festival SFF-rated ATHENS 2011

To SFF-rated ATHENS 2011, με νέο λογότυπο και νέα εικόνα θα διεξαχθεί στον κινηματογράφο ΜΙΚΡΟΚΟΣΜΟΣ 10-16 Μαρτίου. Θα προβληθούν ταινίες μικρού και μεγάλου μήκους από 23 χώρες.
Μεταξύ αυτών και η Παγκόσμια Πρεμιέρα της ταινίας “The Whisperer In Darkness” βασισμένης σε διήγημα του H.P. Lovecraft και σε σκηνοθεσία Sean Branney. Μια μέρα πριν την έναρξη του φεστιβάλ ο Sean Branney θα είναι στην Αθήνα σε μια ειδική εκδήλωση αφιερωμένη στην ταινία, και την H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society της οποία αποτελεί ιδρυτικό μέλος.
Στο 6ο SFF-rated ATHENS δοκιμάζουν τις ικανότητές τους στην σκηνοθεσία και δύο ιερά τέρατα των Ειδικών Εφέ, βραβευμένοι με Όσκαρ: Ο Phil Tippet (Όσκαρ για Return of The Jedi και  Jurassic Park) με ένα 4 λεπτο μεταλλαγμένων που κόβει την ανάσα (και διάφορα μέρη του σώματος), αλλά και ο Greg Nicotero (Όσκαρ για το The Chronicles of Narnia) με μια χιουμοριστική ταινία με θέμα ένα … Πρακτορείο Τεράτων.

SFF-rated ATHENS 2011 will take place in MIKROKOSMOS FILMCENTER, March 10-16. We will screen short films and features from 23 countries including:
The World Premiere of “The Whisperer in Darkness” , the new H.P.Lovecraft film by the H.P.Lovecraft Historical Society, directed by Sean Branney. Sean will be with us here in Athens from Wednesday March 9, for a special event celebrating the film and the artistic achievement of HPLHS.
In the 6th SFF-rated ATHENS, two holy men of Special Effects are trying their hand (and devices) in directing: Phil Tippet (Special Effects Academy Award for “Return of the Jedi” and also for “Jurassic Park”) offers a 4-minute mutant short that takes your breath away (along with various parts of your body), while Greg Nicotero (Special Effects Academy Award for “The Chronicles of Narnia”) gives us a humorous short about a … Monster Talent Agency.

Κατεβάστε το αναλυτικό Πρόγραμμα Προβολών του SFF-rated 2011, εδώ.
Download the detailed Screening Schedule of SFF-rated 2011, here. 

Επίσημο site του Φεστιβαλ

The Thomas Beale Cipher - Andrew S Allen (2010)

The Thomas Beale Cipher from Andrew S Allen on Vimeo.

Based on a true legend of the famous unsolved code.

The film contains 16 hidden messages that hold clues to the characters' secrets. Eight are fairly easy requiring only a close eye. Six are moderately difficult using various encryption methods. Two are extremely difficult requiring a genius mind to decrypt.

"The film uses a unique style of rotoscoping to build a flat, graphic, world that that I have yet to see elsewhere. Based on a true legend of the most difficult cipher ever created, the 10 minute film centers on Professor White, cryptographer extraordinaire, who is on the trail of the notoriously uncrackable Thomas Beale cipher—a century-old riddle hiding the location of a fortune in gold that has tormented its pursuers since inception. But White is not alone—shadowy forces are tight on his tail".

More about the film,
thomasbealecipher.com

Presented by Short of the Week,
shortoftheweek.com/​2011/​01/​24/​the-thomas-beale-cipher/​

The Lost Thing - Oscar Best Animated Short Film 2011

83rd Academy Award - Best Animated Short Film 2011



The short is based on Shaun Tan’s 2002 children’s book of the same name.
A boy finds a strange creature on a beach, and decides to find a home for it in a world where everyone believes there are far more important things to pay attention to.


Directed by Andrew Ruhemann - Shaun Tan
Running time     15 minutes
Country     Australia
Language: English (narration) Narrated by Tim Minchin

Ben Hora - Julie Rembauville, Nicolas Bianco-Levrin (2010)

A migrants’ family arrives by boat in a fantasized new world. The movie stages the disappointment in front of the absurd laws of our society.

Dir: Julie Rembauville & Nicolas Bianco-Levrin (2010), 4 min
Song Ben Hora, PAD BRAPAD, from the album "Satumare-Bristol" (PB&CIe/Mosaic 2009)

Destino Disney & Dali - (1945, 2003)

Destino is an animated short film released in 2003 by The Walt Disney Company. Destino is unique in that its production originally began in 1945, 58 years before its eventual completion. The project was a collaboration between American animator Walt Disney and Spanish painter Salvador Dalí, and features music written by Mexican songwriter Armando Dominguez and performed by Dora Luz.

Doodlebug - Christopher Nolan (1997)

This early short film from the director of Following (1998), Memento (2000), The Prestige (2006) and Inception (2010) was made when he was a student in London. Nolan was studying English Literature at University College London when he started to make 16mm films at the college film society, of which the surreal short DOODLEBUG was one. This early film shows the preoccupation with narrative boundaries Nolan would later explore in his feature films and has the simplicity common to many good shorts. The film was produced by his now-wife and producing partner, Emma Thomas.



A man waits patiently in his apartment to squash a bug, but he could be hurting himself more than he realizes.

"We did the effects on the best machines we could at the time, for free. We painted our own blue screen with paint from John Lewis shop that doesn't actually work very well. It's worth paying for the proper paint it you're ever faced with a similar dilemma." Christopher Nolan on Doodlebug


UK/1997/3mins/16mm/b&w

Wolność nogi ( Freedom of the Leg) - Piotr Dumała (1988)

1988 - "Wolność nogi / Freedom of the Leg". A dream-like story of a sleeping man whose body parts live their own lives at night to return to him in the morning - all except one leg which has chosen freedom. Its owner as well as a crowd of homeless men chase the leg, but it grows feathers and flies away as a bird. A grotesque tale with a poetic ending and with interesting music by Janusz Hajdun.

Piotr Dumala was born in Poland and studied sculpture and animation at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. His award-winning animated ?lms include Lagodna (Gentle Spirit, 1985), Nerwowe zycie kosmosu (Nervous Life of the Universe, 1986), Sciany (Walls, 1987), Wolnosc nogi (Freedom of the Leg, 1988), and Franz Kafka (1990).

Dumala's films have won multiple awards. Lagodna was winner of the Golden Ducat at the International Film Festival in Mannheim, Germany, in 1985, and received an award for the Best Animated Film at the International Short Film Festival in Toures, France. Dumala received a Mister Linea Award at the Treviso International Animation Festival for his 24 episodes of the series Nerwowe zycie, and, in 1998, Sciany received the Grand Prix at the International Short Film Festival in Krakow, Poland, and Special Jury Award at the International Animated Film Festival in Annecy, France. In 1992, Franz Kafka received the Grand Prix at the 10th International Animation Film Festival in Zagreb, Best Animated Film at the International Film Festival in Madrid, Grand Prix at the International Animated Film Festival in Espinho, and Best Cartoon Animation at the Ottawa International Animation Festival.

Dumala's most recent piece is an adaptation of Dostoyevski's Crime and Punishment (Zbrodnia i kara) which premiered at the Ottawa International Animation Festival in September 2000 and received the prize for Best Design at that festival. In 2001, Crime and Punishment was awarded the Public Prize at the Summer Film Festival in Kazimierz, Poland, and at the International Animation Film Festival in Espinho. In 2003 Dumala was awarded a Luna de Valencia at the Valencia Film Festival for his lifetime achievement in animation. He received the Albin Brunovski Prize in Uherske Hradiste for his artistic creativity in the art of animation, and a Grande FeFe Award at the FeFe Festival in Warsaw for his artistic independence in the field of animation. Dumala has created four MTV idents: Charlatan won the Broadcast Design Gold Award in Orlando, Florida, in 1994, and was a finalist in the New York festivals. Kafka Meets Dostoyevski received an International Broadcast Design Gold Award in 1996.

In addition, Dumala has made commercials and TV trailers; a short public service announcement for Amnesty International; and a ten-second sequence created for the Absolut Vodka website showcasing independent animation. He teaches animation at the Film, Television and Drama School in Lodz, Poland; is a guest professor at the Animation House at Konstfack in Eksjö, Sweden; and a visiting lecturer at Harvard University. He is involved in writing and journalistic activities, and published Razor Game (Male, 2000), a collection of short stories. He also creates graphics, paintings, illustrations and poster designs. He is currently working on his new film The Forest.


Awards: 1989 - Grand Prix at 1st Animated Film Biennial FAZY'89 in Bielsko-Biała; Brązowy Lajkonik at 19th National Short Film Festival in Cracow; Professional Prize at the Kiev KROK Festival; 1990 - 1st Prize for a 5 to12 Minute Film at the Zagreb World Festival of Animated Films.

Michaela Pavlatova

Michaela Pavlatova was born in Prague, Czech Republic, in 1961. In 1987 she graduated from the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in Prague. As an animation film director, her films have received numerous awards at international film festivals, including an Oscar nomination for Reci, reci, reci/Words, words, words, the Grand Prix in Montreal, and accolades at Berlin, Tampere, Hiroshima, Stuttgart and the list goes on. Her short animated film, Repete, has also won a series of awards including the Grand Prix at the International Animation Festival Hiroshima and Golden Bear in Berlin.

1991, 8 min, cell animation. Prod.: Kratky Film Praha
Director, animation, design: Michaela Pavlatova

1995, 9 min. animation on papers, Prod.: Kratky Film Praha
Director, animation, design: Michaela Pavlatova

This Could Be Me, Michaela Pavlátová an interesting animated presentation of the artist and her life.

Official site

Train of Thought -Leo Bridle & Ben Thomas (2009)

A short film in paper by Leo Bridle & Ben Thomas.

In a world made entirely out of paper, the wistful drawings in a man′s sketchbook are brought to life by the rhythm of a train journey....


"Train of Thought was made as our graduation film from The Arts Institute at Bournemouth in 2008-2009. Although we used digital compositing software, all the animation and models were done by hand, not with CGI. The film took approximately 9 months to complete, from storyboards through to the final edit. It was a team effort, and we were especially lucky to work with talented modelmaking students, and a mix of professional and student actors".


Directors:
Leo Bridle & Ben Thomas
Actors:
Napoleon Ryan & Marie Thomas Galvin
Animation:
Leo Bridle & Ben Thomas

The music is by Portico Quartet arranged by Jack Wyllie
and sound design by Andrew South vimeo.com/​andrewsoundesign

Making of on youtube
Official film website - including full credits

Replay - Anthony Voisin

 

In a destroyed world, the only glimpse of hope is the memory of a forgotten past.
But be careful not to let your dreams control your mind…

Animation by Anthony Voisin. French with English subtitles.


Interview with Anthony Voisin