On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the Cultural Treaty between Flanders and the Netherlands in 2015 under the header BestNeighbours, the Anima Festival in Brussels and HAFF join forces to celebrate the Flemish-Dutch creativity and cultural alliance with an inspiring programme focussing on the future: the new generation of animation talents.
Flanders and the Netherlands accommodate some internationally renowned professional training programmes for animation that educate a respectable number of students, whose productions have repeatedly been awarded over the years. In Flanders, think for example of Hogeschool KASK Ghent, RITS Erasmushogeschool Brussels, the LUCA School of Arts with campuses in Sint-Lucas Gent and Sint-Lukas Brussels, and the Media, Arts and Design Faculty (MAD) with campuses in Genk and Hasselt. Examples in the Netherlands include AKV St. Joost in Breda, Willem de Kooning in Rotterdam, University of the Arts Utrecht and the Gerrit Rietveld Academy Amsterdam. Recent top-ranking films from these academies have been assembled in a festive programme.
Bears on the Road is a short animated film about Theo, who enjoys nothing more than driving around in his little yellow car. After a car crash, caused by a bear, he wants to get back to his old life, but his growing fear for the outside world stands in his way.
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What does a blind person see what i don't see. The animation is a short trip as how a blind person would make it.
A collection of sketches about people in awkward, painful or just plain absurd physical situations.
Cursed is about a villainess who enjoys bringing chaos and disaster. But when something crosses her way of evil-doing, things turn out for the unexpected.
Satirical ‘newscast’ full of verbal and visual puns in which a maladjusted character tries to understand himself and the world. This leads to a series of sketches ridiculing phenomena of our modern society in encounters and occurrences with a twist. An animation at daggers drawn in very sober lines.
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Two characters perform an everlasting dance, in which leadership and trust confront each other. Abstracted ego-document.
"Follow Through" references to finishing a movement (animation term) and to the English meaning of the word, to follow through with what one has started.
Een visueel spel tussen de hedendaagse prikkels van natuur, geluid en het menselijk lichaam. Dit verbeeld in verschillende Animatie, Film en motion technieken.
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A pig escapes to the woods to discover there are worse things there than what annoys him at home.
How To Catch a Bird is a stop motion short based on a childhood memory.
When I was eight, my dad taught me how to fish. He told me to take the worm off the hook after fishing, but I had no idea why. After fishing I forgot about the worm and left it dangling on the hook. If I only knew then what the consequence of this action would be.
A young deformed boy lives as a side-show freak. When his father asks him to make a birthday-wish he starts to imagine...
' The Counter ' is the title of my graduation-animation. In this short demonstration i have tried to illustrate my perception of the ' Time Layers ' and share my view with other people interested in this subject.
A castaway finds himself washed ashore a beach at the foot of a towering city. His curiosity draws him into the urban expanse he finds before him. Whilst in the city he tries to get in touch with the society. However the characters he meets are strange, superficial and snippy, and after a series of unfortunate events he finds himself a castaway once more.
A girl and boy on separate sides of the world (NY & Amsterdam) both lead fantastical lives but are incapable of meeting. The film is loosely based on a Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner sketch where Wile E. paints a tunnel on a rock that the Roadrunner passes through.
It's made using my own technique of projecting onto paper and then cutting out portions of the film to illustrate the hyperreal mediums that skew our vision.
The characters exist in their own hyperreal worlds, oblivious to the fact that their surroundings are merely fictionalised. Yet they still doggedly try to meet, to break away from their 'painted tunnels'.
Wile E. serves as a deconstruction of hyperreal drama in a cinematic format. Numerous tropes of the cinematic language that usually goes unquestioned are identified and made as visible as possible whilst still retaining an engaging veneer.
The edges of the screen become observable, the screen floats within it’s own frame of reference. Music and image are separated from speech to distinguish which one does what. The music itself is cheaply manipulative and the 3 part basic structure of introduction, disagreement and conclusion is strikingly clear. Even the narrative itself is an absurdist exploitation of elementary filmmaking.
Yet even when everything is visually and aurally laid on a platter, the audience will fight to ignore something they cannot compute and will instead settle on engaging with the basic premise that it’s just a film.
Kaboom Animation Festival is the one-stop-shop for the latest and greatest in all things animated. Ranging from cutting-edge experimental arthouse to colorful stories for families and kids, Kaboom will cater to the animation needs of all. Yes, even yours, my amazing weirdo friend!
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