By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)
Over the years, the many various works created by the talents at National Film Board of Canada has always managed to enthrall, entertain and impress. Many have won awards from many well-established shows like the Annecy International Animated Film Festival. Even for an event like the Victoria Film Festival beginning this weekend, the offerings are a lot more this year to acknowledge the short film medium. They have six instead of the usual three specialized programs to spotlight the talent of many a filmmaker, be it local to international. The NFB have eight animated and documentary pieces being featured. In attendance will be Alanis Obomsawin and Hart Snider to present.
If this company’s works are being screened at a film festival near you, please do not hesitate to check them out. Eventually, they will all be offered online or through their streaming service.
Selections include:
Shop Class (BC)
Weds, Feb 7 | 7pm | Odeon 5
According to the NFB’s synopsis, this film is an honest look at growing up through the filtered lens of a teenager who is no longer a boy but is not quite sure what it means to be a man. It is hilarious in its approach because it speaks to every individual in that awkward time of life. Some even felt alienated. Those “nerds” of yesteryears are not like the “geeks” of today, defined by a love for pop culture. Instead, back then the definition was about awkwardness and being socially accepted.
Writer/director Hart Snider is great at bringing those feelings to the fore with a character that was him many years ago. He said, “Junior high is the most embarrassing time in your life. It’s SO dramatic already, and I am totally still recovering from taking that class. Making this film brought it all back! I also got in touch with old friends who were in the class with me, to get their stories about this teacher, which I included in this film.”
The animation style and stereotypes used as his character struggles through shop class is classic! Hart has put himself into this role before in The Basketball Game [2011], and voice actor Fred Ewanuick is amazing at playing up the meekness of Snider’s animated avatar. This short is not necessarily a wonderful trip through memory lane, but it certainly shows to us, as a viewer, that life has never been easy at any age. To recall that moment and see his plight answered with a happy ending will bring a smile to us all.
Plus, it does not help I have another high school reunion coming up to remind me of my time back then!
My Yiddish Papi (Quebec)
Sun, Feb 4 | 1:30pm | Capital 6
On July 16 and 17, 1942, the French police of the Vichy government cordoned off various Parisian districts to arrest Jewish families during an operation cynically code-named “Spring Breeze.” History remembers this as the Vél’ d’Hiv Roundup, and to see this account recalled through an animation medium feels not only somber but also inspirational.
This work by Éléonore Goldberg is her story, about her regrets, her account of this moment of history, as recalled by what her grandfather told her, before his passing. While she celebrates his memory in this piece, her character expresses regrets. Had she answered the phone, she would have one more moment before her Papi passed.
This film is not sad, but it evokes a lot of emotion in the style of art used. Through the use of ink drawings, gouache, and pigment on paper, the way the colours flow and bleed does foreshadow a type of gloom as the past is recalled. The use of medium shots and close-ups help define how personal this dread is.
Goldberg said, “Making this film allowed me to make good on my promise to my grandfather to share one of his adventures. I chose this one because it was his first gesture of defiance—a gesture that ultimately led to his involvement in the French Resistance and the survival of his family.
“[If there are any lessons to be learned] fascism is never far away; that our rights and freedoms should never be taken for granted; that we must remain on the lookout for signs of intolerance, violence, racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, homophobia and especially, take them seriously, denounce them. And once there, we need to vote, if not for a party that fully represents our ideas and values, then at least against the xenophobic parties. It’s important.”
Hedgehog’s Home (Quebec)
Sun, Feb 4 | 1:30pm | Capital 6
One part Wild West with thanks to Darko Rundek‘s music and another part Dr. Seuss, this stop-motion animated work may well be an Aesop’s fable on top. The narration by Kenneth Walsh is simply spot on and delightful! He helps guides viewers on Hedgehog’s journey. From meeting Fox and having a delightful lunch to heading home, not everyone is in on the conniving canid. He simply wants to know what makes a home so special. For a moment, I thought he wanted to eat Hedgehog.
This work is a winner of more than 25 international awards and honours, including an Annie Award nomination for Best Animated Short Subject, the Young Audiences Public Prize at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival and the Short Film Audience Award at Animafest Zagreb. After seeing this product, I can certainly understand why with the story originally written by Branko Ćopić.
This Balkin tale is very relatable. The lessons offered tease at a bittersweet irony of how one should never stray too far from the beaten path.
Filmmaker Eva Cvijanović believes home is much more something that we create, an action more than a place, and deeply based in cultivating feelings of belonging and security. “This being said, yes, absolutely, the original text was written right after the Second World War, at a moment in history when there was a need within a newly formed Yugoslavia to create and assert its own (unified) national identity, so this sentiment can be appropriated by today’s extremist forces for divisive rather than unifying purposes, and I am conscious of it.”
Three Thousand (Indigenous)
Sun, Feb 4| 9:00pm | The Vic
This amazing but somber trip through Inuit life, if not history, is very evocative. Not every outsider will understand this culture. Understanding this film seems difficult because there’s no narration, but the images do speak for themselves. The archival footage had no sound. Filmmaker and artist Asinnajaq had a difficult task to make this film accessible for those needing that extra element.
In the process of making the film, she said, “We added all those ambient sounds that give a sense of immediacy to the images, and lastly we added the music. Olivier Alary and I consulted extensively throughout the time the images were coming together. I heard his final music not knowing if it would fit exactly, but it completely does! It is subtle, somewhere between sadness and joy.”
The scenes of western civilization coming in to help can be a mixed bag. In what they offer, the subtext being revealed is left to interpretation. The third act is the most uplifting as this video moves from one medium to another, the animated form. The illustrations offer a new language for the senses to marvel at. In what Assinajaq reveals next is the future. It’s simply magical and very transcendental.