Film and Television
- The Girl Who Cried Pearls
- Retirement Plan
- Forevergreen
- Papillon
- The Three Sisters
‘The Girl Who Cried Pearls’
Tagline: “A meticulously crafted fable about a girl overwhelmed by sorrow, the boy who loves her, and how greed leads good hearts to wicked deeds.”
The 17-minute stop-motion animation The Girl Who Cried Pearls is the result of a five-year effort from filmmakers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski.
“Indeterminacy, sometimes called a happy accident, was for us a trusted, invisible collaborator,” the filmmakers told the National Film Board of Canada.
The Girl Who Cried Pearls is built upon themes of greed, deceit and despair before allowing the audience to feel relief toward the end.
The pair was previously nominated for the Animated Shorts Oscar category in 2007 for Madame Tutli-Putli.
‘Retirement Plan’
Tagline: “In the throes of his overstimulated, energy poor midlife, Ray fantasises about everything he'd love to do in retirement, once he finally has the ‘time.’”
What will you do when you retire?
Ray, the center of John Kelly’s Retirement Plan, has a whole list — one that spans the film’s seven minutes.
“I will clean up my desktop,” Ray narrates. “I’ll read the 35 years of saved articles on my reading list.”
If it sounds like a wakeup call, it is. You may wonder how a short film can feel so authentic to your own story.
Kelly wrote about the film's reception in an email to Hollywood Rebound:
The reactions to this film have been wild and varied. Someone today told me it made them get a dog, another person said they called their dad right after watching. This was never our intention, but for the right people, at the right point in their life, it turns out this film can be a provocation, and has left a trail of panic attacks in its wake. When making it I was holding up a mirror to my own anxieties and dreams, and if viewers see themselves in that and it gives them some kind of pause, then that is the dream for me.
‘Forevergreen’
Tagline: “An orphaned bear cub finds a home with a fatherly evergreen tree, until his hunger for trash leads him to danger.”
More than 200 artists and technicians gave their free time over the course of more than five years to create Forevergreen — a 13-minute film that shows the cost of unconditional love.
Described as an “after hours passion project,” the film features “never before seen animation techniques and handmade artistry, weaving art and technology together with heart and humor,” according to its website.
Co-writer and co-director Nathan Engelhardt explained on social media that “hand-drawn animation was a huge influence in determining the movement of the characters.”
Heart outdoes humor as the film shares a message of sacrificial love before the credits roll timed perfectly to the moment a tear might roll down your cheek.
‘Papillon’
Tagline: “In the sea, a man swims. As he does, memories come to the surface. From his early childhood to his life as a man, all his memories are linked to water …”
Florence Miailhe’s Papillon — French for “butterfly” — is a biopic of Jewish-French-Algerian Olympic swimmer Alfred Nakache told in 14 minutes.
Nakache was deported to Auschwitz in January 1944, according to the Olympics, alongside his wife and daughter. He was the sole survivor.
Against all odds, he returned to the sport.
After his release, he went on to become the French national champion at butterfly. He attended the 1948 Olympic Games in London, where he reached the semi-finals in the 200m breaststroke.
The story of Papillon is told through oil painting on canvas brought to life with production from Sacrebleu Productions and Xbo Films.
According to Miailhe’s biography, “she makes her films using paint, pastels or sand, directly under the camera, in a process of overlapping.”
‘The Three Sisters’
Tagline: “Three sisters live a lonely life on an isolated island, each in their own small house. One day, circumstances develop in such a way that they are forced to rent out one of their houses.”
Director Konstantin Bronzit likes the rule of thirds.
Three sisters. Three houses. Three doors. Three men.
The script brings these things together. But pacing is important for a 14-minute film.
Bronzit explained his process to Animation Scoop for moving a script forward: “For a long time I can’t think of anything concrete, the idea doesn’t unfold into a script. But once the first scenes start to appear in my mind, once I begin to see a clear sequence of actions, the process suddenly accelerates.”