Vertical
To the sound of a ramshackle brass band, a world slides towards ruin, carrying with it houses, birds, idols, balloons and whatever is left of reason. Vertical combines expressionist graphics with a scathing black humour and sense of the absurd.
Tower Bawher
Tower Bawher is like a whirlwind tour of Russian constructivist art. The film is filled with visual references to artists of constructivism (Vertov, Stenberg, Rodchenko, Lissitsky and Popova) and enriched with Georgy Sviridov's music that opened the Soviet regime's nightly newscast in the 1970s. The title is an allusion to constructivist architect Vladimir Tatlin's tower, conceived in homage to the glory of the proletariat.
The Man Who Waited
For his entire life, a man has waited outside a closed door. What lies behind? The truth he seeks or another door? Featuring stark animation and a powerful expressionist line, the film illustrates a fruitless and absurd quest for truth. Based on a parable by Kafka, this timeless story is enriched with the mesmerizing music of Arvo Pärt and the sober narration by Tony Robinson.
Drux Flux
Partly figurative, partly abstract, Drux Flux is an animation film of fast-flowing images showing modern people crushed by industry. Inspired by One-Dimensional Man by the philosopher Herbert Marcuse, the filmmaker deconstructs industrial scenes and their terrifying geometry to show the inhumanity of progress.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin: No Intermission
He is a young man, an optimist drawn to dark music and the themes of death and suffering. Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin has gained a reputation for his dedication, musicality and charisma. Combining documentary and animation, this short film captures his energy and passion, both in performance and in conversation.
Lipsett Diaries
A descent into the maelstrom of anguish that tormented Arthur Lipsett, a famed Canadian experimental filmmaker who died at the age of 49. A diary transmuted into a clash of images and sounds charting a prodigious frenzy of creation, a tableau depicting an artist’s dizzying descent into depression and madness: with Lipsett Diaries, Theodore Ushev renews his filmmaking aesthetic and explores what happens when genius is on a first-name basis with madness.
Reflection
An exploration of Montreal through an abstract lens: how reflected images pervade our surroundings, how our senses filter out these ghost images and, finally, how the camera can capture emotions created by a shimmering puddle or a sparkling coloured glass surface. At the same time, Trouvé raises a new awareness of our urban environment. Though inspired by reality, the film is thoroughly immersed in the world of animation.
Nightingales in December
This metaphorical surrealist tale is an allusion, a trip into memories, and the fields of current realities. What if the Nightingales were working instead of singing and going south? Is innocence the only saviour of bird songs? There are no Nightingales in December... All that is left is the story of our beginning, and our end.
Demoni
On the first day after the first Sunday after the first spring rain, a Red Cat is sitting on the roof of an old house...She is waiting, watching the full moon race across the sky. And the house? What's inside? Demons? Witches? The chimney tells the tale of the past inhabitants, through the smoke of a non-existing fire. Where then is this smoke coming from? Only the Cat knows... Watch the hypnotic vinyl fantasy!
Gloria Victoria
Recycling the elements of surrealism and cubism, this animated short focuses on the relationship between art and war. Propelled by the exalting “invasion” theme from Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony (No. 7), the film presents imagery of combat fronts and massacres, leading us from Dresden to Guernica, from the Spanish Civil War to Star Wars. It is at once a symphony that serves the war machine, that stirs the masses, and art that mourns the dead, voices its outrage and calls for peace.