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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I hope I packed enough sunscreen

FFS

Happy Sunday everyone! Typin' atcha while bathed in the eerie, warming glow of Bristol Airport's flourescent lights at a time of morning I'm very rarely awake either by or until. Soon, however, I'll be Annecy-bound and it's sure to be a fun jaunt, if wet and exhausting. There'll be lots of Skwigly coverage, naturally, in fact some of it's already gone up. Steve has a round-up of the UK presence at the fest while I catch up with Patrick Osborne, he who directed the universally-beloved Oscar-winning Disney short Feast (that we spoke with him about previously). Since then he's been working away with the Google ATAP team on the VR film Pearl that festivalgoers can check out at the festival, where Patrick will also be part of a panel discussion on the possibilities and practicalities of VR filmmaking.

While most of what Annecy has on offer will be new to me, there are few personal recommendations for others who are attending that I have from my various travels and dealings in recent months. On the features side of things, look out for Ann Marie Fleming's NFB film Window Horses, which draws on the talents of some wonderful animators to tell a story of Iran's cultural landscape from the perspective of an out-of-water Westerner (I also have a director interview going up next week).
Also worth a watch is the fascinating Psychonauts: The Forgotten Children by Alberto Vázquez and Pedro Rivero, a feature-length outing for the characters established in the short film Birdboy boasting much-improved design and animation and some unexpectedly bizarre humour that was right up my street. You can read my full review of the film for more on what I made of it.
I also have to give props to Penny Lane's Nuts! - it's a film that at first strikes the viewer as misguided and a little confused, being an adaptation of a clearly non-impartial biopic of medical and broadcast pioneer 'Doctor' John Brinkley. As it goes on, however, all confusions are evaporated, revealing a very astute and commendable character study. Ironically my only issue with it is the animation, but I'll expand on why when my review goes up later in the week.
As far as short films are concerned, again there's a lot I've not yet seen but of the ones I have here are some absolutely cracking pieces of work to watch out for:
How Long, Not Long (Michelle Kranot/Uri Kranot, Denmark)
Squame (Nicolas Brault, Canada)
Spoon (Marcus Kempken, Germany)
Stems (Ainslie Henderson, UK)
Blind Vaysha (Theo Ushev, Canada) 
Accidents, Blunders and Calamities (James Cunningham, New Zealand)
The Head Vanishes (Franck Dion, France) - interview going up on Skwigly tomorrow.

In non-Annecy Skwigly round-up news, on top of an interview with Ren & Stimpy APC veteran and Looney Tunes-redesigner Jessica Borutski about her new show Bunnicula, last week was largely devoted to shining a bit of a spotlight on some fresh-faced Canadians who have recently made their first professional animated films as part of the National Film Board of Canada's ongoing Hothouse apprenticeship scheme. We did a similar thing last year, this time around hearing from Hothouse alumnus and Mentoring Director Malcolm Sutherland, as well as the filmmakers themselves: Curtis Horsburgh, Duncan Major, Rhayne Vermette, Lorna Kirk, Catherine Dubeau and Pascaline Lefebvre. There's some really lovely work there and the films are all very short, so give 'em some love.
Righto, time to wrap up, I've got a plane to catch.
UPDATE: No I don't! Not for another five goddamn hours. Top notch work, EasyJet!