When immersed in the contours swelling and waning in the forest of needles, the mundane world drifts away, and we only live to breathe.
Social & External
The people behind it
This documentary is a portrait of the animator of Le Paysagiste, from his childhood in Eastern Quebec to his career at the NFB. Trained at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), Drouin became in some ways the heir to Alexandre Alexeïeff when he began working with the Alexeïeff-Parker pinhole screen in 1974. Recounting his relationship with the filmmaker and inventor, coming back with lucidity and precision on the whole of his own filmography, Jacques Drouin delivers here a precious testimony on creation. Enriched with numerous excerpts and unpublished images from the filmmaker's personal archives, Jacques Drouin en relief is both the adventure of a lifetime and a valuable lesson in cinema.
In this non-narrative animated film inspired by composer François Couperin's harpsichord composition "Barricades mystérieuses," Jacques Drouin explores a whole new way of using the pinscreen to create animated images. He pivots the screen and uses low-angled light to capture images in high relief. The result is like a sculpture whose expertly modelled forms are revealed through film. A film without words.
An animated film based on one of the renku (collaborative linked poems) in the 1684 collection of the same name by the 17th-century Japanese poet Bashō. The creation of the film followed the traditional collaborative nature of the source material – the visuals for each of the 36 stanzas were independently created by 35 different animators. As well as many Japanese animators, Kawamoto assembled leading names in animation from across the world. Each animator was asked to contribute at least 30 seconds to illustrate their stanza, and most of the sequences are under a minute (Yuriy Norshteyn's, though, is nearly two minutes long).
The story of a young boy and his father, both of whom are enlisted to fight in the war. The boy's pride soon turns to fear as the bullets whistle overhead. His father takes his place and is immediately shot and killed. Horrified, the boy understands that war is not a game.
In this short, an artist creates a painting of the landscape he sees, then finds he can literally climb into the picture to see the fantastic world inside.
Animated short film made in three parts on the pin screen by Alexeieff-Parker. With these three exercises, director Jacques Drouin experiments with the play of light and shadow alone. Original, this experience presents us with a reality that is not truncated although it may appear as follows: the faculty of wonder will be able to create the necessary link between everyday life and the way it was rendered.
This abstract yet compelling philosophical tale uses the Alexeïeff-Parker pinscreen as a metaphor for the particles that make up the universe. Through 4 tableaux that explore her character’s thoughts, filmmaker Michèle Lemieux takes a look at the profound reflections of this everyman, whose questions are part of humanity’s eternal quest for meaning.
This short animated film follows Antoine, a young boy fascinated by his mysterious neighbour, a man rumoured to have once been a big game hunter. Antoine is eager to learn about hunting, but the lesson he learns from the wise older man is not at all what he had expected: Antoine is left with a profound reverence for life.
The forest can be full of scary creatures, Eliot’s parents caution, but the mystery might be too tempting for a kid who doesn’t want to go to bed.
Utilising the Alexeïeff-Parker pinscreen technique, this visually poetic non-narrative film revisits Diego Vélasquez’s 1652 portrait of Queen Mariana of Austria with genuine feeling.
When a man becomes blind, his life is all turned around. He can only use his touch to get around in his house. The objects become enemies. But an angel is looking over him.
Cartoon allegory of censorship.
A Blue Soldier and a Yellow Soldier play a board game trying to outwit each other, struggling for control over a piece of land. The Farmer who belongs to the land is not allowed to play and must pick a side. As the fighting escalates, what side does she choose?
A man yearns for a woman.
Joseph is mentally deviated. He is a prisoner of his own flat and always in permanent war with his own mind.
On the night of a Lunar Eclipse a young boy, Tommy, is informed by his dog that the devil is living inside of his mother and that it must be destroyed before its born.
One night, the Nohara family were enjoying a pleasant dream, when suddenly a big fish appeared in their dreams and ate them. The next morning, Hiroshi read in the newspaper that everybody in another town had the same nightmare as him, but it seemed to have ended. But Hiroshi also heard the same dream from Misae, Shinnosuke, Himawari and even Shiro. They were surprised and thought if the same thing is happening in Kasukabe too. In kindergarten, on telling others about his nightmare, Shinnosuke was surprised to know that everybody too had the same dream. Then a mysterious girl named Saki was transferred to Futaba Kindergarten and joined Shinnosuke's class. Everyone in the class, including the rather inactive Bo-chan, were all excited and happy on seeing her. But Saki had a cold attitude and didn't get along well.
Jack is a strange character. He steals paintings from museums to eat them. He feeds himself with the artistic process of the painter. But one day, the museums are closed and he will have to paint by himself to survive
He's not always purr-fectly well behaved, but Garfield is always there for Jon and Odie - there on the couch, there eating lasagne...but he's also there as a friend. So whether Jon's dealing with a lackluster love life, courting car trouble or even being conned by a convict, Garfield is one fat and furry friend for life!
Across different eras, a poor family, an anxious developer and a fed-up landlady become tied to the same mysterious house in this animated dark comedy.
The Noharas must survive a hoard of man-eating killer cacti after Shin-chan's father relocates the family to Mexico for work.
On an idyllic beach in the Pacific Northwest, curiosity gets the better of a young raccoon whose frustrated parent attempts to keep them both safe.
A teenager finds herself transported to a deep forest setting where a battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil is taking place. She bands together with a rag-tag group characters in order to save their world—and ours.
A white dropout struggles to become a cartoonist and filmmaker, drawing inspiration from the harsh, gritty world around him. Still sharing his rundown apartment with his middle-aged parents, an oafish slob of an Italian father and a ditzy nutcase of a Jewish mother, he's ridiculed and looked down upon by his friends, hypocrites who run with violent gangs and the Italian Mafia, and a shallow Black girl who makes her living downtown with the pimps and pushers. The cartoonist gets a chance to pitch a film idea to a movie mogul, but the story proves too outrageous: a far-future Earth, depleted by war and pollution, where a mutant antihero challenges and kills God.
In the distant technological future, civilization has reached its ultimate Net-based form. An "infection" in the past caused the automated systems to spiral out of order, resulting in a multi-leveled city structure that replicates itself infinitely in all directions. Now humanity has lost access to the city's controls, and is hunted down and purged by the defense system known as the Safeguard. In a tiny corner of the city, a little enclave known as the Electro-Fishers is facing eventual extinction, trapped between the threat of the Safeguard and dwindling food supplies. A girl named Zuru goes on a journey to find food for her village, only to inadvertently cause doom when an observation tower senses her and summons a Safeguard pack to eliminate the threat. With her companions dead and all escape routes blocked, the only thing that can save her now is the sudden arrival of Killy the Wanderer, on his quest for the Net Terminal Genes, the key to restoring order to the world.
Everybody needs some alone time to relax and wash up, but things go quite differently when you’re a Flora Colossi toddler.
Po and the Furious Five uncover the legend of three of kung fu's greatest heroes: Master Thundering Rhino, Master Storming Ox, and Master Croc.
The seven short films making up GENIUS PARTY couldn’t be more diverse, linked only by a high standard of quality and inspiration. Atsuko Fukushima’s intro piece is a fantastic abstraction to soak up with the eyes. Masaaki Yuasa, of MIND GAME and CAT SOUP fame, brings his distinctive and deceptively simple graphic style and dream-state logic to the table with “Happy Machine,” his spin on a child’s earliest year. Shinji Kimura’s spookier “Deathtic 4,” meanwhile, seems to tap into the creepier corners of a child’s imagination and open up a toybox full of dark delights. Hideki Futamura’s “Limit Cycle” conjures up a vision of virtual reality, while Yuji Fukuyama’s "Doorbell" and "Baby Blue" by Shinichiro Watanabe use understated realism for very surreal purposes. And Shoji Kawamori, with “Shanghai Dragon,” takes the tropes and conventions of traditional anime out for very fun joyride.
As Nobita, Gian, Shizuka, and Suneo are making their own space movie, a fleeing bug-sized alien president makes his way to Earth, and needs the help of the kids and Doraemon to stop an oppressive dictatorship threatening his democracy.
A sapling Nobita discovers is turned into a plant-boy with help from Doraemon, and becomes Earth's only hope at passing judgment from the dryadic aliens of the Green Planet.
A brave young animal explorer teams up with two trusty friends to find a powerful artifact before his greedy uncle can get his paws on it.
Nobita and his friends find a portal to a mysterious resort filled with metal buildings. They soon discover that the person who opened the portal for them has an ulterior motive.
During summer vacation Nobita picks up a small rocket containing Papi, a palm-sized alien president escaping rebels on his home planet Pirika.
This collection of 10 short films produced by Illumination includes: From the "Despicable Me" franchise: Puppy (2013); Minion Scouts (2019); Training Wheels (2013); The Secret Life of Kyle (2017); Santa's Little Helpers (2019). From the "Grinch" franchise: The Dog Days of Winter (2019). From the "Secret Life of Pets" franchise: Norman Television (2016); Weenie (2016). From the "Sing" franchise: Love at First Sight (2017). From the "Lorax" franchise: Forces of Nature (2012).
Aldin, a vagabond water vendor, embarks of a series of fantastical and tragic misadventures through the Middle East in search of love, fortune, and power.
Groot investigates a spooky noise that’s been haunting the Quadrant, which leads to an intense dance off.
Doraemon and his friends have to rescue the people of Birdopia from the wrongdoing of vengeful former bird troopers before they unleash a wicked ancient dragon.
When the four Willoughby children are abandoned by their selfish parents, they must learn how to adapt their Old-Fashioned values to the contemporary world in order to create something new: The Modern Family.
A series of 30 sketches, following the hilarious antics of various characters from a galaxy, far, far away.
