These offbeat shorts go off the beaten track and bring something you never knew you wanted.
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These offbeat shorts go off the beaten track. Eccentric, boundary-crossing, peculiar, bizarre, unorthodox, weird, idiosyncratic… Call it what you want. But these animated shorts definitely bring something you never knew you wanted. Curated by Anna Eijsbouts and Karolina Głusiec.
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Right at the edge of political, meditative and hopeful video-art and animation, there is this moving piece of cinema that has the look of a delicate oil painting. We see the outlines of an abandoned village. Decay sets in. A village, like a human being, is born out of love. A village, like a human being, is ruined, if left without love and care.
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"I want to be anywhere but here, and in anytime but now."
Maitry Rao's short is a unique and poetic metacommentary film about wanting to go places and see new face, but being prevented from doing so by the pandemic. The narrator unravels a bittersweet resolution in the self-reflexive filmmaking process as we dive deeper into her dreamscape, created with the game Tilt Brush, which lets you paint in three-dimensional space inside virtual reality.
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In this lovely textured and experimentally tickling short, a lady meets a lovely beast, albeit a gigantic slimy cheesy one.
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What a raw and peaceful document of the past, of past people, places, and machines! Filmed on 16mm film, this visual expression is rooted in archival materials, drawing its inspiration from a poem by Hans Magnus Enzensberger which appears in the film. It speaks of forgotten people, their lives and their deeds. These two archives were found at a flea market in Zagreb. One is of a famous architect and the other of a famous composer. The film ponders on this occurrence, as well as on the vanishing and forgetfulness of humans.
How far do we let AI go? Created with the experimental technique of using LiDAR to capture real-life moments and environments, Forever explores the boundary of advanced technology and the human experience. The short shows how a life insurance company uses an AI algorithm to determine the risk of a new applicant. The subsequent denial sparks a period of introspection for the individual in question.
A short but really sweet animation of the female nude, embodying all of her forms throughout the history of art. Her body twists and gnarls itself into these static poses, but she cannot be contained. In perpetual motion, she is released from her form and allowed to finally stare back at us.
Get set for an explosive and jarring experience. I Wish is a true testament to the infamous experimental nature of Russian animation studio Soyuzmultfilm's work. The short follows a sort of hallucinatory dream-poem of a girl. She wants to sleep, but it's not that simple. She has lost her pillow, and the little forest pranksters do not help her to search at all for some reason.
At its best, a poem can transcend everything we know while saying exactly what we should know. This excerpt from a poem by the Russian-American Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky captures the Soviet empire of the 1980s. It's a metaphorical reckoning with a technocratic regime and a nightmarish illustration of war.
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The Candle. The Myth. The Legend. Mountain Lodge. Jordan Wong has succeeded in making a horny desktop film... about a candle. This short is a digital collage of sorts in which Wong dives into the Internet rabbit hole, perhaps the weirdest hole of all.
Why do we love disaster films? Why do we love the idea of seeing the apocalypse on screen? Exploiting the spectacular images of destruction, Rainer Kohlberger's toys with our desire to overturn the status quo and the opposite desire to find it instantly restore, and questions postmodern pop culture. Are we our own doom?
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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