65 minutesThese short animated documentaries don't mess around: real stories, real subjects, real emotions.
Short Docs does not refer to small doctors (it would be cool, though!), but to short documentaries, an often-neglected genre in the film industry. Yet, animation can help bring real stories to life and to deal with traumas, memories, difficult themes and so on. These short animated documentaries don’t mess around: real stories, real subjects, real emotions.
Showing in this program
A Sip of Water
Spirited away, well sort of! Based on interviews, A Sip of Water explores the role of shamanism in Korean culture by putting a female shaman (and her relation to both gods and the common people) centre stage. Shamans are considered extraordinary as they bridge the gap between the world of men and the world of gods. Director Hyuna Cho is one of the few to turn their focus on the shamans themselves, as they mostly serve others. A soothing film with the look of modernized traditional art.
Granny’s Sexual Life
A title that is funnier than the story behind it. A story needing to be told, Granny's Sexual Life is a harrowing animated film based on the anonymous testimonials gathered by Milena Miklavcic in the book Fire, Ass and Snakes are not Toys. Go on an eye-opening trip into grandmother's youth and the memories of her intimate life which illustrate the status of Slovenian women in the first half of the 20th century.
It Wasn’t Bourgogne
However small, war stories have to be told and remembered. Here, a grandfather - between two telephone calls - recalls an episode from the time when he was twenty and fought in Wold War II. Unfortunately, director Mathias de Panafieu didn't live to see his pencil-drawn bittersweet short. After an intense battle against cancer he passed away in 2019. His partner and loved ones completed the film.
Love, Dad
Czech-Vietnamese director Diana Cam Van Nguyen is a talent to watch. Her latest short is a compelling personal story about ties and and gaps between a child and a parent. Diana rediscovers love letters her dad used to write her from prison. That love seems to be gone now. Now, she decides the write back - in the form of a film - in hope to find the connection again. Using a mix of archive photography and animation, she tries to understand the family's break-up.
Prosopagnosia
Apart from being a helluva good word in a scrabble game, Prosopagnosia is a neurodiverse behaviour known as "face blindness", which basically means you can't remember or recognize faces. Filmmaker Steven Fraser lives with prosopagnosia and uses stop-motion animation, cassette tapes, sketchbooks, photos, and diary extracts to convey his feelings about this. By means of film, we begin to understand the importance of faces, the coping mechanisms that can be exercised and the different ways you can you live your life when you cannot remember a face.
Sanctuary
Animal lives matter! In this cute and lighthearted film, a Czech animal rescuer talks about her experience with adoption of handicapped animals and shares stories of an old sick Chihuahua, a paralyzed French Bulldog and a frightened cat finding their perfect human companion.
The Name of the Plum Blossom
Family really matters. Gather round for a touching personal story of a daughter, and her mum who became a tailor in 80s China, just to give her brothers a chance for an education. The Name of the Plum Blossom is a mixed-media film that combines hand-drawn animation, animated photo collage and stop-motion techniques.
YUGO
An unsettling, almost creepy stop-motion film about the consequences of capitalist and liberal economic development of Latin America. A couple of peasants create an informal metallurgy workshop in the outskirts of Bogotá in the hope of a better life. The social, environmental and organic consequences they must endure in order to adapt to the industrial capitalism that storms Latin America affects dramatically their relationship and their history.
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