Tag: anthropomorphism

Tallinn 2022 Kids Animation Programme – part 3

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

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Self-contained fable Birth Of The Oases (Marion Jamault, France, 9 mins) is a near-perfect portrayal of a symbiotic relationship. The cold-blooded hilltop snake struggles to keep warm while the two-humped camel is constantly exhausted by the desert’s heat. They come to a mutually helpful agreement whereby the cold snake takes up residence on the camel’s humps. This warms up the snake and cools down the camel. After the camel dies from old age, the snake moves around the sand dunes – here designed to look like a never ending series of camels humps – to create first water and later full blown oases which, according to the armadillo revealed as the narrator at the very end, to this very day.

In the black and white classroom of the black and white world of The Boy And The Elephant (Sonia Gerbeaud, France, 7 mins), black and white kids taunt someone who is different – a boy with an elephant head who is coloured blue. One kid, though, takes an interest – a boy who is coloured red, and the two embark on a playground friendship which could be read as a gay relationship, a state threatened by the red boy’s need to conform and revert to fit in with the black and whites. Eventually, a black and white girl takes pity on the elephant head, accepts him and he is subsumed into the group.

Marea (Guilia Martinelli, Switzerland, 5 mins) is another self-contained fable about a family living on an island within an hermetically sealed dome.

Stop-frame marvel Laika & Nemo (Jan Gaderman/Sebastian Gadow, Germany, 15 mins), arguably my favourite film in the programme, again concerns an outsider – a boy who lives in a lighthouse who is regularly tormented by fellow pupils and local fishermen at the harbour for wearing deep sea diving gear. When an astronaut crashes his spaceship near the lighthouse, the two helmet-wearers bond which puts them in a good place for when one of those local fishermen drops a key into the harbour.

Last but not least, The Queen Of The Foxes (Marina Rosset, Switzerland, 9 mins) is a French tale about the saddest member of a group of foxes who is, perhaps for that reason, made their queen. The other foxes’ inability to write hampers their attempts at writing such a letter to cheer her up. Instead, they steal from the nearby town all the love letters people have never been brave enough to send, delivering one which results in the uniting of a happy human couple who write their own letter to the fox queen thanking her for their efforts, which finally does the trick. The foxes then deliver the other letters, and the town windows suddenly become full of lively couples, straight, gay, even a threesome.

Which goes to show that programmes of kids animation can be a lot dirtier than you might expect.

The third of three programmes of Kids Animation shorts plays in the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Tallinn 2022 Kids Animation Programme – part 2

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

QUICK SNAP: LIVE FROM TALLINN

One of two hungry mice becomes trapped inside a large, circular cheese in Mouse House (Timon Leder, Slovenia/Croatia, 9 mins) and is able to gorge himself inside while his companion struggles unsuccessfully, stomach rumbling, to transport the cheese. Meanwhile, a cat prowls around. The cat is peripheral: this is not so much a game of cat and mouse as of mouse and cheese.

The deceptively simple plot of The Turnip (Piret Sigus/Silja Saarepuu, Estonia, 7 mins) involves the planting and the subsequent, less than successful pulling up of that vegetable. The human villagers are represented, often as close ups of feet, in relief, cut-out animation, that is to say somewhere between 2D and 3D, a technique heightened in the lengthy sequences of centipedes and other bugs under the earth interacting with the turnip prior to its extraction.

The lively visuals of Away From Home (Brunella De Cola, Italy, 6 mins) convey the idea of Africans wanting it to snow in Africa.

Letters From The Edge Of The Forest (Jelena Droz, Croatia, 12 mins) adopts the time-worn setting of a bunch of forest animals to question such prevalent values as selfishness and greed. When a squirrel proposes to write a letter, a visit to local owl sees the latter make it very clear that he, and only he, can perform this service. But eventually, he is talked round to the idea that if he were able to help other animals write letters free of charge, it would be a good thing for everybody.

The anthropomorphised crocodile of Lost Brain (Isabelle Favez, Switzerland, 7 mins) gets ill and stays home after getting caught in the rain outside. Thus, her world is turned into black and white with areas covered by inkblots. Suddenly, she is no longer able to find the key to open her front door. After venturing into such curiously satisfying visual conceits as a lampshade becoming a toaster, a tear falls on a piano key and she starts to compose music, which turns out to be part of her route out of her predicament. She is later seen in a park where trees resemble musical notes.

The second of three programmes of Kids Animation shorts plays in the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Tallinn 2022 Kids Animation Programme – part 1

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

QUICK SNAP: LIVE TALLINN

After her village is damaged by a huge, falling rock, and after being tucked into bed by her mum, Luce goes out and befriends the giant, sentient rock, the pair helping one another out of scrapes in a series of scenarios. The night scenes in Luce And The Rock (Britt Raes, Belgium/France/Netherlands, 13 mins) are stunningly designed in a palette of yellow (for the girl) and blue (for the rock). In the morning, however, other people are horrified to discover she’s befriended the monster until Luce demonstrates that the feared outsider may sometimes have something unexpected and valuable to contribute.

Giuseppe (Isabelle Favez, Switzerland, 26 mins) is a hedgehog whose favourite storybook concerns the Ghost Of Winter who carries off any hedgehogs foolish enough to be out and about in Winter rather than hibernating. However, his friends the rabbits tell him that Winter is the best season, so he resolves to see some of it for himself. This is a fiendishly clever script that plays on animal behaviour (hedgehogs hibernate) to talk about how society conditions children via half-truths.

I’m Not Afraid (Marita Mayer, Germany/Norway, 7 mins) explores brother and sister relationships as a boy plays at being a fearless tiger. His elder sister, however, would much rather talk about comics with her disabled friend, who gets around on crutches, and she tricks him into a game of hide and seek in an attempt for her and her friend to get some peace and quiet. It’s high on visual style and you can’t really imagine it having quite the same impact had it been made live action.

The first of three programmes of Kids Animation shorts plays in the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival which runs from Friday, 11th November to Friday, 25th November. Watch a trailer for Luce and the Rock below: