Stick Talk

For our sixty-second episode of the Skwigly Animation Podcast we meet award-winning filmmaker Ann Marie Fleming, whose body of work includes the animated biography The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam (2003) and the adaptation of Bernice Eisenstein’s I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors (2010) as well as her first full-length NFB animated feature Window Horses, which saw its premiere at Annecy back in June of this year. Having gathered production funds via IndieGogo, the film features Ann Marie’s long-established animated avatar Stickgirl ‘starring’ as Rosie Ming, a Canadian poet whose cultural horizons and perceptions of her family history are broadened when she finds herself invited to participate in a poetry festival in Iran.
Primarily animated by longtime collaborator Kevin Langdale, Window Horses draws upon the talents of multiple artists in the visual depictions of its poetry, including Janet Perlman, Louise Johnson, Jody Kramer, Kunal Sen and Lillian Chan, with Sandra Oh and Ellen Page among its cast. Having screened at a number of major festivals including the Ottawa International Animation Festival, Fantoche International Animation Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival and the Vancouver International Film Festival where it won for Best BC Film and Best Canadian Film, Window Horses will see its UK premiere at the London International Animation Festival on December 11th.
Also discussed in this episode: Children’s BAFTA winners, Oscar contenders for Best Animated Short, the ‘dark turn’ of Cars 3 and the return of the Late Night Work Club, whose second anthology Strangers launched earlier this week.
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