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Why, yes I watched thirteen films today…
Wan Wan (dir. Mayuko Kobayashi; 8 min.)—A kaleidoscopic grapeshot blast of vibrantly vague memories. I suspect this font of imagery—trees, water, pigeons, noodle pan, fireworks—flows directly from Mayuko Kobayashi’s memories, but there is a universality. Beginning with home-video of a matriarch, we dive into a series of child-drawings in constant motion. There’s also a cute dog.
Transitional Object (dir. Shayna Strype; 7 min.)—D’aww, that was adorable. Shayna Strype uses stop-motion, traditional, and a combination of the two animations to honor a girl’s stuffed toy as it watches over her through the years, before passing her along to the afterlife. Lo-fi synth keyboarding provides a chirpy, nostalgic soundtrack.
Play Fight! (dir. Katrina Larner; 8 min.)—There are countless gaps in my personal experience, and one reason I’m drawn to animated shorts is in order to fill those gaps. Herein, Katrina Larner explores the vagaries of ‘tween girl sleepovers, and the mental impact of homosexual preferences at that age. A 5th-wheel girl is dropped off for a night of party-playing, and so we observe a cavalcade of cacophonous color and craziness. A giant mother mother shoots a knife and fork from her eyes and pursues what she views as wayward behavior. But!, things wrap up well enough for our pentad of party people, ’cause it’s only a play fight.
blinks in mimi’s singing voice (dir. Natalie Xie; 6 min.)—Is this but an elaborate series of notebook doodles brought to life? Perhaps, but maybe not. I can’t say I understood just what this was or where it was going, but Natalie Xie kept my eyes occupied throughout as the image shifted from clusters of kitty faces to jumping jacks to desks, chairs, and birds. On its one-and-a-half second course across the screen, a green dot kept my rapt attention.
A Flame the Color of Air (dir. Emily Pelstring; 7 min.)—Words, lines, color, and voice all flow and spin across a black backdrop, shifting and never taking full form for long. Pelstring’s study of womanhood focuses on the ineffable, drawing from a medieval Catholic mystic’s musings, and she creates a black-light mood reminiscent of Kenneth Anger at his sparkliest. (Link: for mature audiences.)
A Bloody Situation (dir. Nerian Keywan; 6 min.)—A reluctant welcoming of a girl into womanhood: the pain and discomfort don’t get better, she is told, but at least there’s a sense of sorority. Landing somewhere between 3D rendering and naturalistic, Nerian Keywan’s exploration of feminine growth features a lot of tranquil blood, quiet understanding, and tall masses of goo: the most prominent of whom is “Ms Moodswings.” A sanguine meditation, to be certain.
Witness: An Organima Film (dir. Nik Arthur; 6 min.)—”I see now. You are motion itself.” Witness feels like a cross between cellular slides for a microscope, with some Greenaway mapping tendencies. Soft ambient music plays under dots and blibbets traveling along a leaf’s veins and dropping upwards from a pond’s waters. Smooth.
ima wa ima (dir. Greg Keung Chun Yam; 5 min.)—Salaryman discovers pesky caterpillar, and conscientiously escorts it outside to a bit of greenery in front of his office. But the thing seems familiar. Bluesy guitar, scant dialogue, and an adorable little bug thing. “A friend told me that the things we miss find a way back to us”—and I was relieved to find that true in the case of this little narrative.
Hungry Hollow (dir. Sarah Ruyle; 6 min.)—”What’s a ‘microwave’?” It’s when a really, really small guy waves at you. So goes the tone in Sarah Ruyles whimsical observations of tiny plants and creatures having a grand old time devouring the corpse of a young dead woman. Crayonic vibrancy and flowing water coloring, accompanied by a soft and happy guitar strum, carry the viewer through a slice-of-life amongst the many happy critters of Hungry Hollow.
Busy Bodies (dir. Kate Renshaw-Lewis; 6 min.)—Little gnome things make the world go ’round, be it shifting lemons through Seussian distribution tubes, or processing the fish plopping forth from the sink faucet. Green, crimson, and yellow: with plenty of gnome-machine gloves. In the end, border lines disappear and we approach a haze of busy color.
How to Build a Sand Castle (dir. Nour Khamis; 4 min.)—Simple, vibrant lines and use of negative space? Aw heck yeah. That this is entirely in a delightful shade of blue is just a bonus. Dream-flow associations bring a woman from the beach (building the eponymous castle), down to the depths, and into a chamber, before imprisonment, and then release and… Wholesome in its graphic depiction of the inner font of life.
One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six (dir. Yingdan Lai; 8 min.)—Infuriating. Someone stole someone else’s chocolates. “Whoever took my chocolate, I wish you turn into a pig,” and it’d serve ’em right. But who among the eight other girls did this? Cute and contemplative, in a floating kind of way, Yingdan Lai uses simple but expressive linework on an ochre parchment background to examine low-stakes childhood perfidy. Note to self: try to figure out what glow-green-tone frog and ribbon mean in this otherwise monochromatic item.
Bootstrapping for the Boobied (dir. Stella Chen; 13 min.)—Amber wants her roommate’s tits in her mouth, and being able to declare that hopefully unlocks something for Stella Chen’s protagonist. Rendered in a comic-book-y, ’90s-y, 3D, VGA-chromatic style, Bootstrapping is a jagged piece of ominous pastellation. We’ve got problems, society’s got problems, and money money money is a big problem (“Eat These Gentrified Noo[..]oodles,” advertises a local restaurant). Darkly comic, and rather harsh on its heroine, Chen’s narrative still left me hopeful that things might work out for Amber in the end.