Russian
director Sergej Ovtcharov, 1996 Akademie der
Kuenste Best Director laureate for his film
Barabaniada, ironically deconstructs
the mythical Feats Of Hercules
(Podwigi Gerakla, 10 mins). Ovtcharov
skillfully combines doll animation and live
action for a fresh take on ancient Greek iconography.
Turkish-born
director Nuray Sahin, a student at the German
Film and Television Academy in Berlin since
1996, tells a story of cultures clashing in
The Last Cartridge (Die
Letzte Patrone, 7 mins). A young man of
Turkish descent enters service in the German
army and, during roll call, he is confronted
with the war experiences of his grandfather.
"The
uncertainty between appearance and truth is
overcome in that moment of decision-making."
This prologue introduces Thomas Voigt's film
The Moment (Der Augenblick,
4 mins, 20 secs). This animated film's unusual
look stems from a technology based on oil
painting, with the motifs painted on yellow-lit
transparent cells.
Australian
animation director and children's book author
Ann Shenfield presents the world from a child's
perspective in her original film Episodes
In Disbelief (7 mins). How does one
know whether a thousand-year-old seed harbours
an extinct flower species or merely a weed?
Time, space, trauma and hope are presented
in a magical panorama of childlike musings.
What
do frogs have in common with Shakespeare?
Quite a bit, according to animation director
and former Bolshoi Ballet stage-designer
Pjotr Sapegin's film In A Corner Of
The World (I Et Hjorne Av Verden).
Based on Shakespeare's sonnet number 18,
the film depicts frogs succumbing to amorous
impulses on a midsummer night near the North
Pole.
Not
many have the privilege of casting Charlotte
Rampling, Roman Polanski and Jean-Claude
Brialy in the same film. Director Jean Rousselot
is one of the chosen few, in Tribute
To Alfred Lepetit (Hommage À
Alfred Lepetit).
Canadian
3D animator Guy Lampron takes us to a surreal
city reminiscent of New York in Sentinelles
(8 mins). Two metallic eagle heads on a
skyscraper fence come to life in this visually
stunning, melancholy ode to freedom.
Barry
Dignam's Dream Kitchen (9
mins), based on a short play by Kevin McCarthy,
is an urban fairy tale. Andrew Lovern plays
a son who dreams up a luxurious kitchen
as a way of telling his parents the good
news that he is gay.
Bsss
pretty much says it all for the
fly protagonist of Felix Goennert's two-minute
animated film. The 25-year-old Goennert
is a student at the Konrad Wolf Film School
in Potsdam, and his mid-term film becomes
quite acrobatic when his buzzing heroine
sees an elephant standing on its trunk in
a picture book and decides that she has
a trunk, too.
Animated
dolls metaphorically illustrate the futility
of labour in Ferenc Cako's Vision
(Vizio, 9 mins). The renowned Hungarian
animator, painter and illustrator won a
Golden Bear in 1994 for his short Asbes.
Vision shows an army building
a tower under the most difficult of circumstances.
Media,
Czech director and screenwriter Pavel Koutsky's
fourth film, is a grotesque mass-media satire,
combining dynamic black and white drawings
with animated hands and objects.
Ula
Stoeckl
