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Get Animated 2020 with The NFB! and Beyond…

Today is International Animation Day, and The NFB is releasing their 12 best pieces online!

By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

The National Film Board of Canada has been very busy lately. Not only did they have works featured at the Vancouver Film Festival but also they’re following up with Animez-vous (Get Animated 2020)!

Today is International Animation Day, and this company is releasing their 12 best pieces online! Some old favourites–The Cannonball Woman, The Physics of Sorrow and Blind Vaysha–are in this collection, and afterwards, they will have one work, Old Dog, shown during Spark Animation Festival.

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Parallax or The Duality of the Mind

Parallax Movie Poster By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

Opens July 10, 2020
Limited Release

* Spoiler Alert

There’s more than a simple existential crisis going on in Parallax. This film title is very telling because by definition, the term is about how an object can appear displaced relative to the observer when he or she even moves a few feet. In computer graphic design, it can create an illusion of depth. With this movie, it’s about reality bending in strange ways where Naomi (Naomi Prentice) feels out-of-place relative to the world moving on without her.

This lightly budgeted thriller shows it’s supernatural colours later. The visual composition is also telling, since it’s playing with the viewer’s understanding of what the word, parallax, means.

As an artist, Naomi says her paintings are like portals to other worlds. One touch, and she feels whisked away to that beach. In reality, she could be simply dreaming it…

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Marona’s Fantastic Tale is Fanciful and Care Free

$Marona\'s Fantastic Tale$ By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

GKIDs Virtual Cinema Release

Coming to Blu-ray, DVD, Digital

November 2020

Marona’s Fantastic Tale is more than just a meditation on life—a reflection of what was—of a beloved dog fading away. Unlike The Call of the Wild which is based on Jack London’s novel of the same name, with a happy ending this animated movie is an original work written and directed by Anca Damian and her son, Anghel, which is much more sombre and philosophical.

The titular character voiced by Lizzy Brochere reveals all that she’s experienced in a Parisian town filled with colourful humans. Sometimes, what the pup dealt with in the beginning is not as telling as her other encounters. There are some weird people out there, and they are definitely caricatures of people exhibiting some weird vices.

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Doxa Docs in Review, Part Two

* Playing from June 18 to 26. Tickets to an online screening can be purchased here. For information, please visit their faq.

The Doxa Documentary Film Festival continues to stream direct to your home, and in part two, I look beyond the Pacific Northwest. This time, I’m travelling East to get a taste of what living in Toronto was once like, when a person of my namesake helped change the scene long ago. But home is where the heart is, no matter where you live. This includes finding love in a digital age.

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[Vancouver, BC] Give ❤ to Doxa with this Preview

It’s no secret that most film festivals around the world are going virtual. The next regional one in British Columbia is the Doxa Documentary Film Festival taking place June 18-26. This Vancouver-based event is presented by the Documentary Media Society (incorporated 1998) and they curate an impressive selection of works which explores the human condition. They want us as a society to think more about the world around us.

This fact also includes making the wise choice to still stay at home until the pandemic is in control or perhaps getting informed with the films to be presented. The following are my picks. They range from examining gender roles to where A.I. may fit in as the future.

Please note that some of these works are approved for screening only in this province, and the synopsis are from Doxa’s website. The tickets purchased give a code to viewing it online anytime during the event dates.

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