9/23/2012

OIAF 2012: Best of the Fest



Kali the Little Vampire. Photo from the production, courtesy of The NFB

The 2012 Ottawa International Film Festival has come to a close. It’s been a pleasure to cover the festival, especially since this was my first opportunity to write about it as accredited media. My first accredited Ottawa event, actually, so a big thanks to OIAF!

I fell a bit short of my goal to see all the shorts and features in the competition: scheduling conflicts on my end, plus a 10 am screening time caused me to miss Short Competition 2. I’m disappointed, too, that I didn’t make Le tableau, especially since it sounds like the best of the features. Hopefully it will return in a theatrical release.

I saw 72 shorts and 3 feature films in all, but the best of them was actually my favourite animated short from the CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival: Regina Pessoa’s Kali the Little Vampire. I love this film and it held strong to the title of “Best Animated Short.” A few shorts however, gave Kali a run for its money (the runner-up especially), so, without further ado, here are my picks for the top ten films at OIAF 2012. (Titles link to reviews of the programme in which they screened.)

(Regina Pessoa, Canada/Portugal/France/Switzerland)

(Grant Orchard, UK)

 3. Plume
(Barry Purves, France)

(Nils Knoblich, Germany)

5.  Junkyard
(Hisko Hulsing, The Netherlands/Belgium)

 6. Choros
(Michael Langan & Terah Maher, USA)

(Anna Humphries, UK)

(Martine Chartrand, Canada)

(Peter Peake, UK)

10.  A Wind Egg
(Ryo Okawara, Japan)

Additionally, here are links to the three features reviewed at the festival:
Arrugas ★★★½
Consuming Spirits ★★½
Babeldom

Make sure to catch the jury’s picks for “Best of the Fest” when the award winners screen at the NAC tonight at 8:00pm. (See www.animationfestival.ca for more details.)

Thanks again to all the staff and volunteers at the festival! 

Did you have any favourites of the festival?