Shorts 3: Animation

Description

Comprising an array of animation techniques and styles, from hand-drawn to CGI to puppetry and including narrative, non-narrative and experimental forms, these shorts represent the most arresting and wonderful animated work out there. All 2013 films in this program are competing for a Golden Gate Award.

Total running time 74 min

Cosmic Flower Unfolding
Bay Area produced, this short takes the concept of a mandala in motion to psychedelic extremes. (Benjamin Ridgway, USA 2013, 2 min) This is a Cinema by the Bay film.

Drunker Than a Skunk
Master animator Bill Plympton returns with his groundbreaking and iconic illustrator’s style in this typically dark and gruff tale. (Bill Plympton, USA 2013, 4 min)

Gloria Victoria
The final film in Theodore Ushev’s incisive trilogy on art, ideology and power—following Tower Bawher (2005) and Drux Flux (2008)—is an antiwar treatise mixing constructivist, cubist, surrealist and expressionist styles. (Theodore Ushev, Canada 2013, 7 min)

Little Vulvah and Her Clitoral Awareness
This hand-drawn and painted piece presents a young woman’s discovery of age-old pleasures. (Sara Koppel, Denmark 2013, 5 min)

The Master’s Voice: Caveirao
The mysterious, postmodern island-city “M” is the setting for this march of ghosts and ghouls. (Guilherme Marcondes, France/USA/Brazil 2013, 11 min)

The Missing Scarf
Narrated by the inimitable George Takei, what begins as a charming children’s tale of a squirrel’s missing scarf takes an unexpectedly existential, life-threatening turn. (Eoin Duffy, Ireland, 2013, 7 min)

Oh Willy…
Perhaps the most amazing puppet-based short film that begins with an uncomfortable reminiscence of growing up in a nudist camp ever made. (Emma de Swaef, Marc James Roels, Belgium 2012, 17 min)

The Rancher
SFIFF veteran, Kelly Sears, returns with a quasi-historical thriller featuring Lyndon B. Johnson. (Kelly Sears, USA 2013, 7 min)

Stop the Show (aka WAR)
One of two Max Hattler–directed shorts in this program that showcase his impeccable design skills and sound synchronization chops. (Max Hattler, UK 2013, 1 min)

Subconscious Password
Always prodding the anxious inner workings of the hopelessly analytical mind to uncomfortable and comedic effect, Chris Landreth takes us on a ride of guilt-induced frenzy. (Chris Landreth, Canada 2013, 11 min)

A Very Large Increase in the Size, Amount, or Importance of Something Over a Very
Short Period of Time
Hattler’s very short films, sometimes with very long titles, pack very intense wallops. (Max Hattler, Russia/UK/Germany 2013, 2 min)

–Sean Uyehara