Conjuring up Figures in Focus: The Magical World for LIAF 2022
“I’ve always had access to other worlds. We all do. Because we dream.” Leonora Carrington (1917-2011)
I am delighted to be presenting a selection of shorts inspirited by the esoteric art of Leonora Carrington at London International Animation Festival 2022 at the Barbican Centre on Tuesday 29 November – tickets here.
Leonora’s work was influenced by Irish folklore, psychoanalysis, the alchemical imagery of Hieronymus Bosch, and much more besides. These animated works share her love of experimentation, symbolism, the spirit world, and its creatures, as well as touching on the violence ever present in the human world. The therapeutic act of making art and imagining a more harmonious and hospitable world beyond our own, is present in these works as much as it is in Carrington’s.
As with many previously overlooked female artists, Carrington’s standing as an eminent artist is now more widely celebrated. In 2022, her work has been exhibited in ‘Surrealism Beyond Borders’ at Tate Modern, and the Venice Biennale’s title ‘The Milk of Dreams’ a tribute to the children’s book created from the fantastical stories she invented for her sons.
Following the screening, a panel discussion will take place with featured filmmakers Anna Bunting-Branch, Réka Bucsi, and Renee Zhan, academic Carmen Hannibal, and programmer Abigail Addison.
Figures in Focus, (previously called Female Figures) was devised in 2017 by me, to showcase under-represented female and non-binary animators and their stories within the independent animation sector. The programme showcases incredible work crafted by contemporary animators, both in the UK and internationally.
CW: Violence, blood, pregnancy
Programme (running time c.82 minutes):
Eager, Allison Schulnik, US, 2014, 8 min
The Linguists, Anna Bunting-Branch, UK, 2017, 8 min
Impossible Figures and Other Stories II, Marta Pajek, Poland, 2016, 15 min
Tears of Inge, Alisi Telengut, Canada, 2013, 5 min
Kamakura (Snow Hut), Yoriko Mizushiri, Japan, 2013, 6 min
Hell Hath No Furie, Kitty Faingold, UK, 2018, 6 min
LOVE, Réka Bucsi, Hungary, 2016, 15 min
Histoire pour 2 Trompettes, Amandine Meyer, 2021, France, 5 min
O Black Hole!, Renee Zhan, 2020, UK, 16 min
Speakers
Réka is a Hungarian animator who graduated from Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in 2013. Her graduation film ‘Symphony No.42’ was shortlisted for the Oscars in 2014. Her films have screened at many film festivals worldwide and have been awarded prizes several times. Réka was one of the Berlinale Shorts International Jury members at the 2020 Berlinale, she was a speaker at Pictoplasma and a guest teacher at the California Institute of Arts in 2019. Réka was invited to become a new member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in 2021
Anna is an artist and researcher based in London. Moving between painting, writing, and animation, her work explores science fiction as a methodology to re-vision feminist practice and its histories. Her work has been presented internationally, including at Bergen Kunsthall, CCA Derry-Londonderry, FACT Liverpool, Helsinki Contemporary, ICA London, Jerwood Space, and Wysing Arts Centre. She has published work in The Sociological Review, Fandom as Methodology (Goldsmiths Press, 2019), MAP Magazine and Art Licks. She received a Prix Ars Electronica Honorary Mention for Computer Animation in 2021 and an Arts Council England Project Grant in 2019.
Carmen is a PhD Candidate in Animation Studies at the Royal College of Art. Her thesis ‘The Living Metaphor in Animation’ engages critically with philosophical and semantic approaches to the production of new meaning to support her cinematic analyses of the nonconceptual manifestation of metaphor in a selection of animated works that display a poetic dimension. She has published in mediaesthetics – Journal of Poetics of Audiovisual Images, Animation Studies, and the online educational resource platform Fantasy/Animation. She is also the convenor for the Society for Animation Studies special interest group Figurative Meaning and Metamorphosis in Animation, and she has recently co-organised the international research symposium TIMES OF METAPHOR.
Renee is a Chinese-American director and animator. In her films, Renee is primarily interested in exploring topics of the body, nature, sexuality – all things beautiful, ugly, and squishy. Renee is an alumnus of Berlinale Talents and the Sarabande Foundation. Her short films have screened and won awards internationally including Annecy, Locarno, AFI Fest, Telluride, TIFF, SXSW, a British Animation Award, an Annie Award and BIFA nomination, BAFTA LA shortlist, and the Jury Prize for Animated Short at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.
Synopses
Eager, Allison Schulnik, US, 2014, 8 min
Allison Schulnik’s short film uses clay and stop motion to create a riotous, fantasy world, populated by a cast of human and non-human creatures, united in a state of continuous transformation as they dance, slice each other open, and wear one another’s bodies. Courtesy of Allison Schulnik and P·P·O·W, New York.
The Linguists, Anna Bunting-Branch, UK, 2017, 8 min
The Linguists is inspired by Láadan, the constructed ‘women’s language’, developed by Suzette Haden Elgin in her sci- fi trilogy ‘Native Tongue’ (1984-94).
Impossible Figures and Other Stories II, Marta Pajek, Poland, 2016, 15 min
While rushing around the house, a woman falls and trips. She gets up, only to discover that her home has unusual features – it is built from paradoxes, filled with illusions and covered with patterns.
Tears of Inge, Alisi Telengut, Canada, 2013, 5 min
When a mother camel has a painful childbirth, she rejects her newborn baby. Mongolian nomads would sing and play sad songs to the camel, who touched by the melody, would cry just as a human might do.
Kamakura (Snow Hut), Yoriko Mizushiri, Japan, 2013, 6 min
The snow in Yoriko’s hometown is soft and innocently beautiful. This film is calm and clean as much as the snow she remembers. There is no questionable or hidden meaning. All the movements and expressions are simple and universal.
Hell Hath No Furie, Kitty Faingold, UK, 2018, 6 min
It’s the early 1990s, and after a millennial slumber three Classical Ancient Furies are resurrected and re-imagined living in a flat somewhere within the Bowels of Hell.
LOVE, Réka Bucsi, Hungary, 2016, 15 min
LOVE is a short film describing affection in 3 different chapters, through its impact on a distant solar system.
Histoire pour 2 trompettes, Amandine Meyer, 2021, France, 5 min
An initiatory and intimate story in which the author tells, in the form of a tale, the key stages of her construction as a woman and an artist.
O Black Hole!, Renee Zhan, 2020, UK, 16 min
A woman who can’t stand the passing of time sucks everyone and everything she loves inside herself to keep them with her forever. Eventually, she turns into a black hole. A thousand unchanging years pass inside her dark embrace until one day, the Singularity wakes.
Header image: O Black Hole!, Renee Zhan