International Festival of Animated Films, 7 - 12 May 2024, Czech Republic
Jury members: Jakub Pístecký, Javier Mariscal, Noureddin Zarrinkelk
(Anomalisa)
Director: Duke Johnson, Charlie Kaufman
Screenplay: Charlie Kaufman
Art designers: John Joyce, Susan Donym
USA, 2015, 90 min
Studio: A Starburns Industry, Snoot Entertainment
Jury statement: A very unique film with a tone seldom expressed in animation, utilizing a technique that was stylized and yet disturbingly realistic to tell the story.
Synopsis:
Anomalisa is the second film directed by famed screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, this time co-directed by Duke Johnson. The main hero of the film is a middle-aged man named Michal Stone, author of a best-selling book about customer service and how to run a call centre. As a renowned speaker, Michael is invited to a convention where he is to deliver a speech on this subject. But Michael is, quite paradoxically, a man who sees communication with others as a huge problem. In his hotel – the main setting of the film – he runs into Lisa, who may be just the cure to his negative approach to life. Through animation, this familiar plot takes on an interesting dimension. The authors decided to come clean and uncover their animation techniques, neglecting for example to erase spaces between detachable parts of characters’ faces, as is usually done. The film itself plays out under a sort of dreamlike shroud. The sarcastic and melancholic world ruled by Michael who is suffering from the rare Fregoli delusion (whereby essentially everyone looks identical to him) seems to lack credibility. A combination of live-action techniques and animation reinforces a sense of enticing tension in which we don’t know whether to take the film as a metaphor or not, or when it is a dream and when it is a peculiar “live-action film.”
(Cafard)
Director, screenplay: Jan Bultheel
Art designer: André Ferwerda
France, Belgium, Netherlands, 2015, 86 min
Studio: Tondo Films, Topkapi Films
Jury statement:
A very painterly and beautifully told tragic tale set in the first world war.
Jury members: Jakub Pístecký, Javier Mariscal, Noureddin Zarrinkelk
(Phantom Boy)
Director: Alain Gagnol, Jean-Loup Felicioli
Art designer: Alain Gagnol
Screenplay: Jean-Loup Felicioli
Belgium, France, 2015, 84 min
Studio: Folimage Studio, Lunanime, France 3 Cinéma
Jury statement:
A sweet and powerful story that takes on some difficult themes while taking the audience on a magical journey filled with action and imagination while infused with a child-like sense of wonder. This beautifully crafted film is an accomplishment both technically and aesthetically.
Synopsis:
Czech viewers probably know Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol in particular for their charming Academy Award-nominated feature A Cat in Paris (Une vie du chat, 2010) which was also screened at Anifilm. Now the writing- -directing team is back with yet another remarkably captivating story. In this thrilling superhero film, the authors once again focus on a crime plot while remaining faithful to their very original and stylized animation. This time, the story is set in an alternate version of New York. The main hero is the 11-year-old bedridden Leo. Hospitalized Leo meets an unsuccessful police officer Alex who is confined to wheelchair after his injury at the hands of an evil mob kingpin. Leo reveals to him that his illness gave him a power to leave his body and fly around the city, passing through walls just like a phantom. And as the boy longs to be a policeman himself, they team up and decide to solve the case “remotely” with the help of Alex’s girlfriend. The story is full of suspenseful and almost horror-like scenes, but also humour and irony used to portray the unlucky policeman and the “dangerous” mobster. One of the characters is voiced by Audrey Tatou (known from Amelie from Montmartre).
(Adama)
Director: Simon Rouby
Screenplay: Julien Lilti
Art designer: Simon Rouby
France, 2015, 82 min
Studio: Naïa Productions, Pipangaï France 3 cinéma, Philippe Aigle
Jury statement:
A beautiful and original story that transported the viewer into a very painterly and richly textured world which had a raw and authentic sensibility in its delivery.
Jury members: Chintis Lundgren, Jan Pinkava, Rosto
(Periferia)
Director, art designer: David Coquard-Dassault
France, 2015, 12 min
Studio: Autour De Minuit, Schmuby Productions
Jury statement:
A masterful portrayal of abandonment. With each irresistible image the atmosphere builds and the narrative moves forward almost by itself. Perfect.
Synopsis:
The unusually atmospheric film Peripheria explores the life of an abandoned French suburb that gradually changes into an urban wasteland roamed by packs of stray dogs. The film reflects on the current hopeless situation of desolate French housing estates decaying at the outskirts of big cities.
Director, art designer: Jack O'Shea
Ireland, 2015, 9 min 56 sec
Studio: Still Films Ltd.
Jury statement:
A pitch black fairy tale lures the viewer into its deep pockets. The stark visual style and clear-headed but suggestive narrative was thrilling and left us eager to see it again.
Jury members: Chintis Lundgren, Jan Pinkava, Rosto
(Happy End)
Director, screenplay, art designer: Jan Saska
Czech Republic, 2015, 5 min 41 sec
School: FAMU Praha
Jury statement:
This film knows what it wants and knows how to get it. With its surprising, adventurous storytelling and clever sense of humour, we enjoyed it as much as it enjoyed itself.
Synopsis:
Happy End is a dark comedy about death but, as the title suggests, with a happy ending. The story revolves around a series of strange accidents connected with the recurring discovery of the same corpse. The individual situations are so specific though, that several suspects come to mind. The filmmaker’s original style permeates both the visual aspect and the story of the film.
(Vučje igre)
Director, screenplay, art designer: Jelena Oroz
Croatia, 2015, 4 min 40 sec
School: Academy of Fine Arts Zagreb
Jury statement:
The film skilfully plays with the contrast of naive graphic style and primal animalism: domestic vs wild; instinct vs culture; child vs parent – with a gently shocking effect.
Jury members: Vera Neubauer, Carolina López Caballero, Ondřej Švadlena
Director, art designer: Nikki Schuster
Austria, Germany, 2015, 7 min
Production: Nikki Schuster (fiesfilm.com)
Jury statement:
For making extraordinary the waste and remains giving them a second life through stop-motion. The film underlines the human absence with a great use of sound and picture.
Synopsis:
Austrian animator and sound designer Nikki Schuster draws on Freud’s theory about the magical phase of childhood – on a combination of hopes and fears that things are capable of keeping their secrets from us. With stop-motion animation, the film explores the world and a strange subculture of discarded things in derelict houses and other remote places.
(EZ3kiel: The Eye of the Storm)
Director, art designer: Masanobu Hiraoka
France, Japan, 2015, 5 min 3 sec
Production: Masanobu Hiraoka, Je Regarde
Jury statement:
We expect a music video to catch your eye in a few seconds. This one does the job through beautiful use of animation metamorphosing the figurative with the abstract in an oneiric world of emotions.
Synopsis:
The music video for The Eye of the Storm was made by Japanese director Masanobu Hiraoka, a self-taught animator who has achieved a fully professional artistic technique. Fluid imagery smoothly transforms from abstract shapes into concrete ones in this refined Japanese visualisation.
Director: Filip Pošivač, Barbora Valecká
Art designer: Filip Pošivač
Czech Republic, 2015, 26 min 5 sec
Production: nutprodukce
Synopsis:
Forest elves Bertik and Josefka live in a deep forest. They take care of the forest, Josefka makes hats for sassy mushrooms and Bertik puts out and lights up night-time mushroom lamps. But one day, Bertik’s lamps start to go missing… This charming story for children, which was in production for seven years, builds on the poetics of Czech forests and the Czech puppet-film tradition.