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| Window Horses. Courtesy of the NFB. |
OIAF also features three Canadian titles, which is an impressive tally given that Canadian feature animation is pretty rare. The trio of Canuck cartoons hitting OIAF are the Quebecois box office smash La guerre des tuques, Window Horses featuring a vocal performance by Nepean homegirl Sandra Oh, and Louise en hiver from Jean-François Laguionie, who triumphed at OIAF 1978 with La traversée de l’Atlantique à la rame. OIAFfers can catch Laguionie’s prize-winner too, since the fest offers six screening programmes featuring every one of the festival’s past Grand Prize winners. Additional shorts will be announced leading up to the festival.
The feature films playing at OIAF this year are:
Cafard
Dir. Jan Bultheel | Belgium/France/Netherlands
Synopsis: Cafard begins
at the junction of the best and the worst moments of a man's life. The very
second-best wrestler Jean Mordant wins the World Championship, his 15-year-old
daughter becomes pregnant after being gang raped by German soldiers. Leaving
everything behind, Jean returns to his daughter in Belgium, but because of his
hostile feelings toward Germany he decides to go to war. He wants revenge, but
war doesn't achieve anything for him; it leaves him devastated and traumatized,
losing both his lovely daughter and himself.
La guerre des tuques (Snowtime!)
Dir. Jean-François Pouliot | Canada
Synopsis: To amuse themselves during the winter school
break, the kids in a small village decide to have a massive snowball fight.
Luke and Sophie, both 11 years old, become the leaders of the opposing sides.
But what starts out as pure youthful fun and enthusiasm deteriorates into a
more serious conflict. Joy is restored when all the children decide to attack
the fort rather than each other and happily destroy every last bit of the snow
fort.
Louise en Hiver
Dir. Jean-François Laguionie | Canada
Synopsis: At the end of summer, an old lady watches as the
last train of the season leaves the small seaside station of Biligen without
her. The town is deserted. The weather rapidly deteriorates and the arrival of
high tides cuts electricity and all means of communication. Fragile and neat,
not half as tough as Robinson, Louise may not survive winter.
Nerdland
Dir. Chris Prynoski | USA
Synopsis: Story of two best friends, aspiring screenwriter Elliot
and aspiring actor John, whose dreams of super-stardom have fizzled. With their
30th birthdays looming and their desperation growing, John and Elliot decide
that in this 24/7, celebrity-obsessed world of over-shared navel-gazing, there
are more ways to become famous -- or infamous -- than ever before. Starring
Patton Oswalt and Paul Rudd.
NUTS!
Dir. Penny Lane | USA
Synopsis: NUTS! is a feature length documentary
[directed by Penny Lane] about Dr. John Romulus Brinkley, an eccentric genius
who built an empire in Depression-era America with a goat testicle impotence
cure and a million watt radio station. Using animated reenactments, interviews,
archival footage, and a hilariously unreliable narrator, NUTS! traces Brinkley’s rise from
poverty and obscurity to the heights of celebrity, wealth and influence in
Depression-era America. Along the way, he transplants tens of thousands of goat
testicles; amasses an enormous fortune; is (sort of) elected Governor of
Kansas; builds the world’s most powerful radio station; invents junk mail, the
infomercial, the sound-truck and Border Radio; hosts some epic parties; and
annoys the heck out of the establishment, until finally his audacious actions
force the federal government to create regulations to stop him. How he does it,
and what happens when it all comes crashing down, is the story of NUTS!
Psiconautas: the forgotten children
Dir. Pedro Rivero, Alberto Vázquez
Synopsis: Psychonauts is an animated feature directed by
Alberto Vazquez and Pedro Rivero, from the original graphic novel of the same
title by Alberto Vazquez As a feature, is the culmination of a journey started
with the short film 'Birdboy', also based on this graphic novel which was
awarded with a Goya Award in 2012. 'Birdboy' was also shortlisted for the Oscar
in its category and earned an extensive list of awards at national and
international festivals. Aimed at young and adult audiences, Psychonauts is an
atypical work that it served of the typical iconography of cartoons series to
tell an intense poetic and social story. In it, the struggle of its main
characters, DINKY and BIRDBOY, trying to escape of the suffocating atmosphere
that is breathed in the island where they live. A place that lost its entire
splendor because of a terrible industrial accident The lack of job prospects,
the family and social control to whom are perceived as different from the norm,
the fondness for addictive ...
Window Horses
Dir. Anne Marie Fleming | Canada
Synopsis: Window
Horses is a feature-length animated film about a young Canadian poet
who embarks on a whirlwind voyage of discovery—of herself, her family, love,
history, and the nature of poetry. Directed by award-winning filmmaker Ann
Marie Fleming, and featuring the voices of Sandra Oh, Don McKellar, Nancy Kuan,
and Shohreh Aghdashloo, the film is filled with poems and histories created by
a variety of artists and animators, who set out to blend a vast myriad of
differences between cultures, philosophies, arts, and time frames.
OIAF runs Sept.
21-25.
Please visit www.animationfestival.ca for more
information.
