The National Film Board of Canada’s animation production program will be represented at LA Shorts Fest (lashortsfest.com), taking place September 3-10, by three diverse films. The selections include the North American premiere of If I Was God, the latest film from two-time Oscar winner Cordell Barker (The Cat Came Back, Strange Invaders), along with award winners The Weatherman and the Shadowboxer by Randall Lloyd Okita and In Deep Waters (NFB/Papy 3D) by Sarah Van den Boom.
If I Was God explores the difficult gateway between childhood and adolescence, when the approaching power of adulthood is often mistaken for omnipotence. Drawing inspiration from Barker’s own memories of a particularly awkward day in Grade 7, and using a variety of animation techniques, from traditional animation to stop-motion puppets and more, he creates a darkly whimsical 3D animated short film with an organic, hand-made feel that’s as imperfectly human as the world we all ultimately craft for ourselves. The film is produced by Michael Fukushima and David Christensen for the NFB.
The Weatherman and the Shadowboxer is a visually haunting animated short film about two brothers who share the scars, though not the memories, of an untold history that has driven them to existential extremes. Combining high-speed camerawork, striking art direction and intricate animation sequences, acclaimed visual artist and filmmaker Randall Lloyd Okita crafts a poetic elegy to connectedness and survival.
In Deep Waters: From the moment they are conceived, twin babies forge a close bond in their mother’s womb. But when one twin dies during the pregnancy, the surviving twin is left with a feeling of grief that may last a lifetime. This moving and poetic animated short by Sarah Van Den Boom tells the stories of three people who are deeply affected by the death of their twin in utero, a phenomenon that is rarely discussed yet not uncommon.
Selected animated films;
A Broken One by Yifu Zhou; US
An Ode to Love by Matthew Darragh; New Zealand
Aria for a Cow by Dan Lund; US
Bad Advice by Matthew Lee; UK
Blackford Manor by Jiwook Kim; US
Chhaya by Debanjan Nandy; India
Dead Air by Robert Bradbrook; UK
Death Loves Life by Jonathan Lacocque, Clara Lehmann; US
Eggplant by Yangzi She; US
Golden Shot by Gokalp Gonen; Turkey
Hum by Tom Teller; US
If I Was God by Cordell Barker
In Deep Waters by Sarah Van den Boom; Canada
Monster Fish by Daniel Gies, Alan Parante; Canada
Pencil Me In by Tony Benedict; US
Switch Man by Hsun-Chun Chuang, Shao-Kuei Tong; US
Taking the Plunge by Nick Manfredi, Marie Raoult; US
The Ballad of the Homeless by Monica Manganelli; Italy
The Meek by Joe Brumm, Mark Paterson; Australia
The Red Herring by Leevi Lemmetty; Finland
The Tie by An Vrombaut; Belgium
The Weatherman and the Shadowboxer by Randall Lloyd Okita; Canada
Three Foods by Peter Hausner, Snobar Avani; Denmark
Tick Tock by Zeynep Kocak; Turkey
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