This article originally appeared in the June/July ’23 issue of Animation Magazine (No. 331)

We take a look at eight of the wonderful new animated shorts curated for the 2023 Annecy Festival’s Official Selection program this year:

Sweet Like Lemons

Directed by Jenny Jokela (Finland, U.K.)

Sometimes animation can help you work out unresolved feelings left over from a bad relationship. That’s what happened to Finnish director Jenny Jokela as she set out to make her stylish new short, Sweet Like Lemons. “Although the film doesn’t directly depict me or the other person involved, the inspiration of the film was to create a therapeutic process for myself so I could work through the emotions and struggles of a bad relationship,” she admits.

The director, who won a Cristal at Annecy for her 2018 student short Barbecue, began working on her new short at the Fontevraud residency (NEF Animation) in France five years ago. The majority of the short was animated in 2021 and painted in 2022. She animated it digitally with TVPaint, then printed out each frame and painted it by hand on paper using acrylic paint.

“Traditional narrative does not come naturally to me, and my films therefore tend to focus more on taking the viewer on an emotional and symbolic journey,” says Jokela. “Although I knew exactly what each color and figure symbolized, I struggled to order the sequences to create a storyboard. So, I sent all my imagery, animated bits and rambling explanations to writer Celia Hillo. I explained to her that the film is about needing to accept closure without actually feeling you have the answers that you need. In her text, she got this exact sentiment articulated by writing it in email format, which is something I incorporated in the final movie.”

Although she studied animation at Royal College of Art, Jokela points out that she was originally self-taught. “I was studying fashion branding and had no idea about the world of independent animation until I came across the work of Swedish animation artist Nathalie Djurberg,” says the director. “She was one of the main inspirations for me when starting to learn how to animate and, to this day, I’m influenced by her work. Another current inspiration to me is Dash Shaw, I really like both his comics and films.”

The talented filmmaker is optimistic about the state of indie animation. “Although funding for animation keeps getting cut and harder to come by, somehow people still keep managing to make really inspirational and creative work,” says Jokela. “With so many apps and AI auto-generated animation I have found that on the counter side, there is also a growing appreciation for traditional animation that is harder to recreate automatically. That’s very nice for someone like me who likes to spend my time painting!”

La Perra (The Bitch)

Directed by Carla Melo Gampert (Colombia, France)

In Carla Melo Gampert’s powerful short La Perra (The Bitch), a young girl leaves her domineering mom and the family dog to explore her sexuality. The Colombian director explains that several events in her own life inspired her work. “My mother gave me my puppy, Conga, when I was 11, after my parents separated,” she notes. “Conga died when I was 25 years old, and I still feel guilty that I missed the last months of her life, as I was staying at my boyfriend’s house at the time. My dog’s death made me reflect a lot on the passage of time and what it means to be a mother and a bitch: the animal and the woman.”

Melo Gampert began the production of the film in June of 2011, and it took her and her team about two years and eight months to complete the project. The animation was provided by Evidencia Films in Colombia and June Films in France, co-produced by ARTE France.

“Everything was done by hand, 12 frames per second,” she recalls. “We would capture the line drawings with a camera to see if they worked — if they lacked fluidity or if the movement needed a pause. Once the drawings were approved, we moved on to color with inks and watercolors. I was looking for mistakes, accidents and stains. I felt that there was something interesting in dirtying the traces — to feel the human touch behind the brush. I think that ‘not knowing how to do it’ was very positive for the special qualities of the short film, because we let ourselves be led by an intuition that allows you see the humanity in the images.”

Mentioning Florence Miailhe, Marta Pajek and Elizabeth Hobbs as animation artists who have been sources of inspiration, Melo Gampert says she loved the way the characters in her short began to have a life of their own and came from the unconscious of everyone who worked on the crew. “There are also parts that make me laugh a lot, and others that connect me with the child I was and the sadness I carried. The animation has the ability to surprise its creator and reveal the unknown.”

The director believes something very powerful is happening in animation globally. “I feel that the world is becoming more interested in animation and it’s not only for children or commercial purposes,” she says. “Latin American animation is also becoming more visible. It’s used as a tool to think about the body, the image, cinema, whatever comes to mind. There are more and more short films that explore intimacy and femininity. With my colleagues in Colombia, we are curating Latin American shorts that reveal not only the inner lives of people, but also touch on political and historical issues to reveal new layers without falling into stereotypes.”

Watch the trailer here.

World to Roam

Directed by Stephen Irwin (U.K.)

British director Stephen Irwin has impressed animation festival audiences in years past with award-winning shorts such as Moxie, The Obvious Child and Wood Child and Hidden Forest Mother. This year, he’s back at Annecy with a stylish and haunting new short, titled World to Roam.

Watching his son grow up gave him the idea for the short. “It’s a horrible cliché, but they really do grow up so fast!” says Irwin. “He’s eight now and looking at videos of him as a toddler always makes me slightly mournful. There are versions of him I’ll never meet again. You don’t notice it at the time, but they’re suddenly gone, replaced by a new version, who in turn will also disappear one day. And it just keeps happening!”

Irwin used After Effects, Photoshop, Premiere, Audition, “all the usual Adobe suspects” to produce the animation. “I did everything myself, apart from narrate it,” he says. “Animation, sound design, editing, casting, sorting music rights, making cups of tea — you have to take on many roles with a zero budget!”

Irwin says he can’t exactly say when he started working on it, since there were so many false starts. “I applied for funding a couple of years ago but wasn’t successful,” he recalls “Without any money I had to change how the film would be made. The story didn’t change much, but the technique I’d hoped to use wasn’t possible without a team. It had to be something I could do alone, without any assistance (which is how most of my other films have been made). Ultimately though, I’m pleased with the way it went. Having some money would have been nice of course, but I think the style/technique I ended up using works well. It actually pushed elements of the story in new directions too.”

Not surprisingly, he says auteurs like Yuri Norstein, Suzan Pitt, Don Hertzfeldt, Amanda Forbis & Wendy Tilby, Pendleton Ward and Kōji Yamamura are a few of his animation heroes. He also says he misses the online community Vimeo built about 10 years ago. “I still watch a lot of stuff on there, but not nearly as much,” says Irwin. “Instagram is great for seeing what other animators are working on, but I wouldn’t watch an entire short on there. There’s still loads of fantastic work being made each year. Trends come and go. Festival curation is just as varied and strong. What’s interesting to me now is seeing the different paths other animators have taken, and how their work has evolved over the years.”

“I’m always surprised and delighted by the different ways in which people interpret my films, be it positive or negative,” he concludes. “I consider anything other than complete boredom a win!”

Maurice’s Bar

Directed by Tom Prezman & Tzor Edery (France, Israel)

Tom Prezman and Tzor Edery’s Maurice’s Bar dovetails perfectly with Annecy’s spotlight on LGBTQ+ content and filmmakers this year. The short tells the story of one of Paris’ first gay bars as seen through the eyes of a former drag queen.

“We learned about this place through our friend Noam Sienna, a researcher of North African Jewish history, who together with Leslie Choquette had done a thorough investigation on the life of Moïse Zekri, a.k.a. Maurice L’Algerien,” says Prezman. “We used this research as inspiration for our interpretation of what the bar might have been like. Our film takes some liberties with the facts and creates a subjective view of Maurice and his bar, told through rumors and gossip by clients and filtered through our modern queer lens.”

The filmmakers began working on their labor of love in early 2020 and finished it in March of this year. “We used Toon Boom Harmony for animation,” says Prezman. “While the film is mostly made digitally, we worked with handmade textures and elements using aquatint and etching printing technique to make the final look. Our crew consisted of four animators, including Tzor and I, and three more artists working on clean up and color.”

One of the biggest challenges for the directors was casting 11 queer actors in the main roles, since the main cast had to be trans or non-binary actresses like the characters themselves, and some needed to speak Arabic. “It was really important for us to be authentic when portraying a queer bar in 1906 Paris,” says the director. “Another challenge was making a film in a language we didn’t speak in the beginning. We learned French from scratch in order to correctly write the dialog and to work with the actors. We also had two animators that only spoke French, so we improved in the process of making the film.”

According to Prezman, the style influences were films that use flat, graphic designs with a big focus on silhouette, that still convey sensuality and a sense of physicality. “Queer animation is still developing, and we take a lot of our influence from live-action films in the genre. We love the films of Pedro Almodóvar, his portrayal of sexuality and gender was one of our biggest inspirations,” he adds.

The filmmaker says animated shorts are a great way to be as uncompromising as possible. “It’s a big commitment to make a film of any length, but in a short, you can take on a lot of different roles and still see your handprint in every aspect of the film,” he says. “It’s also a very free medium in terms of expression and narrative.”

“We hope that people who see themselves belonging in the bar will be able to connect with the themes, the campy vibes and humor,” he concludes. “We also hope that it will give people a glimpse into a hidden part of queer history and the social issues the film addresses. We wanted to make a film that’s very political, but also doesn’t take itself too seriously. The characters are all persecuted, but through it they carry themselves with strength, self-confidence, and a sense of humor.”

The Miracle

Directed by Nienke Deutz (Belgium, France, The Netherlands)

An all-inclusive tourist resort is the setting for Nienke Deutz’s insightful new short, The Miracle. “The portrayal of pregnancy and motherhood in pop culture ignited my idea for the project,” she says. “Both are passionately celebrated, but at the same time the emotions of women who — for whatever reason — do not conceive, often seem to be hushed up and ignored.”

The Dutch filmmaker first came into prominence with her previous short Bloeistraat 11 in 2018. She began working on her short in 2019 and took two years to produce the project. “The film is a combination of 2D animation and stop motion,” she explains. “First, the characters are animated in 2D, these drawings are printed on transparent sheets, then cut out and hand painted. We built physical sets and reanimated the characters frame by frame in those sets.”

So, what was the biggest challenge? “To keep my cool during the intense period of production,” she admits. “It was a lot to juggle — thousands of frames, and a giant set!  I’ve learned so many lessons, especially in the field of time management. It is so important it is to have good planning and always be a few steps ahead of the process.”

Deutz says she loves the work of Allison Schulnik. “They feel like such a pure form of animation, and I can look at it forever. In terms of storytelling, one of the best shorts I have seen in a while is It’s Nice in Here by Robert-Jonathan Koeyers.”

She also points out that she loves working in the animated short world. “It’s a great format to use bold styles and because of the limited time available, it drives me to the core of the narrative,” says Deutz. “In The Miracle, I wanted to show a woman who has struggles and doubts around pregnancy and motherhood, but who finds humor and strength in her situation. I would love for the film to inspire and open up a conversation around this topic.”

Catisfaction

Directed by André Almeida (Portugal)

We’ve seen an abundance of wonderful, animated shorts created by Portuguese artists in recent years. The latest example is André Almeida’s imaginative short involving a man, his cat and a surreal dream.

“I was driving my own Vespa, and imagined myself standing up and opening my arms while trying to control the bike at full speed,” remembers Almeida. “At this moment, a cat crossed my path and I almost fell off the bike. As I was creating the story, I realized that the scenes in the short were connected to my life in one way or another.”

Almeida made the Catifscation all by himself, with the exception of the audio and the music which were created by André Freitas and Gonçalo Abrantes, respectively. He used the 3D software, Cinema 4D, Arnold renderer, Marvelous Designer, After Effects and ZBrush to produce the animation.

It took him about two years to complete the production. “This was my first short film, so the main challenge for me was finding a narrative for a series of creative moments,” he recalls. “I knew what kind of story I wanted to tell, and that I didn’t want it to be an obvious or very clear one.”

The director mentions that he loves to watch the movies of Hayao Miyazaki and Satoshi Kon. “I also find inspiration in the work of David Lynch, Christopher Nolan and Akira Kurosawa,” he says. “More recently the work of Alberto Mielgo got me excited to work on animated short films. As a video artist working with 3D animation for the last 13 years in advertising, I’m familiar with the process of telling a story in a short format. I also love to work in animation because it allows me to combine video, photography, drawing, motion graphics and storytelling.”

Almeida says he hopes audiences find Catisfaction bold, and different from what they are used to watching. “I never wanted to do something that was obvious. I would like them to think about how a single relationship can shape our life forever either with a human or an animal. It’s important to reflect on the meaning of our relationships — even if it’s between a man and a cat.”

La Grande Arche (The Great Arc)

Directed by Camille Authouart (France)

Camille Authouart pays homage to an often-ignored neighborhood in her hand-crafted new short La Grande Arche (The Great Arc). She began writing the short in 2017, but the production actually began in 2021, and wrapped up a year later.

“At the origin of the project, there is a heart attack and then a move,” she tells us. “A few months later, I had the desire to come back and walk around the neighborhood with a sketchbook, just to draw the skyscrapers. For more than a month, I filled the pages daily with notes and drawings made in the unpopular district of La Défense in Paris. This is the business district where my grandmother had lived in the same apartment for almost 60 years. Everyone hates this neighborhood, but she taught me to love it.”

The backgrounds for the short are drawn by hand on paper and all the animation was done using TVPaint and then embedded in the backgrounds during compositing. “I did all the backgrounds and part of the layout and worked with a wonderful team of five animators for about five months.”

Authouart says it was quite stressful but very constructive to manage a team. “As I’m not an animator myself, I tried to make sure to guide them while leaving them a space of freedom and proposal,” she recalls. “It was also a way for me to take a step back from the film by letting them put something of themselves into it. After four years of working on it alone, the film started to take shape during the animation stage. It allowed me to detach myself from it a little and thus better accept it — with its positive qualities and its faults.

The director says she was recently moved by two animated films: Flee by Jonas Poher Rasmussen and Nayola by José Miguel Ribeiro. “I believe that there are stories, emotions, that can only be told through the filter of drawing,” she says. “Flee and Nayola are great examples of that and are one of those movies that make me want to continue directing.”

The message she strives to relate with the short is, that it’s all a matter of perspective. “I rely on this idea to highlight the poetry that I found in the heart of this unpopular district of Paris,” notes the director. “In the collective imagination, it’s often reduced to a capitalistic, concrete district, with gigantic office towers, invaded by employees and executives. But it’s actually a place of great social and cultural diversity. This constantly changing neighborhood belongs to everyone and to no one. In The Great Ark, we follow two residents of the district, two forgotten people able to grasp the astonishing contrasts of this place, sometimes finding something marvelous, and sometimes tragic in the infinite reflections of the skyscrapers.”

Salvation Has No Name

Directed by Joseph Wallace (U.K., France, Czech Republic)

Bristol-born director Joseph Wallace has worked on his powerful stop-motion short about the global refugee crisis for several years. “It has been a passion project of mine for several years and I began working on the development of the film around 2014, but support for adult, independent animation in the U.K. has been mostly non-existent for the past couple of decades. It took a long time to find partners and raise finance for the film.”

The short evolved from Wallace’s own personal fears of the rise of Right-Wing nationalism across Europe and lack of sympathy for asylum seekers. “This thematic exploration, along with wanting to tell a story in a theatrical manner, whilst exploring the downfall of a priest, all came together to make Salvation Has No Name,” he notes.

Wallace used textural black-and-white puppet animation to tell his story. The puppets were made from wood, metal, paper and fabric, and have a sculptural feel to them. The 15-minute short was shot digitally on Canon cameras with Dragonframe. The film also employs cut-out animation using imagery from Victorian etchings.

“The biggest challenge was probably making such a grand and ambitious story on a very tight budget,” says the director. “Throughout my career I’ve always tried to make epic, cinematic imagery on screen using humble, often recycled materials. For this film, all of that was amplified. I also learned a lot about letting go and delegating; learning to trust the team, trust the process, focus on the vision and remember that tiny details aren’t everything as the film is a sum of many parts.”

“This film is a particularly political story, dealing with the kind of themes that we don’t often see in animation but especially not in puppet animation,” Wallace points out. “I hope that the aesthetic and the storytelling style are unique. And while the film deals with these challenging topics, I hope there is also a sense of hope from the film and that the short acts as a catalyst for conversation and contemplation.”