A colorful collage, with a subtle ecology theme, made largely from footage from trial runs of programs used for many of the other films.
Social & External
The seven short films making up GENIUS PARTY couldn’t be more diverse, linked only by a high standard of quality and inspiration. Atsuko Fukushima’s intro piece is a fantastic abstraction to soak up with the eyes. Masaaki Yuasa, of MIND GAME and CAT SOUP fame, brings his distinctive and deceptively simple graphic style and dream-state logic to the table with “Happy Machine,” his spin on a child’s earliest year. Shinji Kimura’s spookier “Deathtic 4,” meanwhile, seems to tap into the creepier corners of a child’s imagination and open up a toybox full of dark delights. Hideki Futamura’s “Limit Cycle” conjures up a vision of virtual reality, while Yuji Fukuyama’s "Doorbell" and "Baby Blue" by Shinichiro Watanabe use understated realism for very surreal purposes. And Shoji Kawamori, with “Shanghai Dragon,” takes the tropes and conventions of traditional anime out for very fun joyride.
Six characters meet in a bath house. The pedant bath house manager, a couple with a strange way of communicating and a gang with shady intentions. Something goes wrong.
1960's Siegheilkirchen, a small town in the Austrian hinterland is steeped in reactionary and ultra-Catholic attitudes. The son of a hard-working innkeeper and his wife, called Snotty Boy by all and sundry, is at odds with the narrow-minded confines of his home town. But his unstoppable talent for drawing gives him an outlet for his discontent.
This very short stereoscopic film by Evelyn Lambart uses drawings to suggest movement across Canada’s ever-changing countryside.
Teenager Riley's mind headquarters is undergoing a sudden demolition to make room for something entirely unexpected: new Emotions! Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust, who’ve long been running a successful operation by all accounts, aren’t sure how to feel when Anxiety shows up. And it looks like she’s not alone.
Asha, a sharp-witted idealist, makes a wish so powerful that it is answered by a cosmic force – a little ball of boundless energy called Star. Together, Asha and Star confront a most formidable foe - the ruler of Rosas, King Magnifico - to save her community and prove that when the will of one courageous human connects with the magic of the stars, wondrous things can happen.
A woman plays out her existence on the screen of her life. Alcohol is the essence of her being. She imbibes her youth and becomes completely absorbed by the desire to satisfy her thirst. Moving from parties to binge drinking, pleasure to distress, joy to delirium, she lets herself be lulled by the undulating waves of bottles. She floats in the intoxicating liquid, sees her childhood re-emerge, and feels as if she is a tiny fish lost in an ocean of madness. Her craving for alcohol engenders a burning passion. Drinking becomes a fatal embrace... On the verge of drowning in the torrent of this insane obsession, will she find the strength to rise to the surface?
Polar bear Norm and his three Arctic lemming buddies are forced out into the world once their icy home begins melting and breaking apart. Landing in New York, Norm begins life anew as a performing corporate mascot, only to discover that his new employers are directly responsible for the destruction of his polar home.
Anita the duck buys a psychic device at a novelty store in an alternate universe and creates mayhem at a crazy party.
Men and women, all dressing up, awaiting, tempting, enjoying the bliss or sadly unsuccessful. Delights of the body, yearning, excitement, luxury, decadence, erotic of the common day. The erotic as frivolous, mischievous, frolic, comic and sometimes also slightly serious animated musical erotic fantasy. Much like the modern dance art, the film is marked by interplay of the visual and musical components – picture, rhythm, color, motion. The film consists of separate sequences, each of them accompanied by individual musical movements of Mr. Saint-Saens’s composition.
A little man lives in an old suitcase. One day he finds a new friend - an old blind man. The little man jumps into the blind man's pocket. With music, the pocket man helps the blind man walk and see things in the street. Both are very happy together.
When Pia plays a mysterious vinyl record single, she suddenly knows how to travel through her own life.
This animated short is a tragic and twisted story about the dangers of revenge. A cruel mother mistreats her son, feeding him dog meat and forcing him to sleep in the cold. A loon, who tells the boy that his mother blinded him, helps the child regain his eyesight. Then the boy seeks revenge, releasing his mother’s lifeline as she harpoons a whale and watching her drown. Based on a portion of the epic Inuit legend “The Blind Boy and the Loon.”
A seven-year-old girl longs for a bicycle so that she can be more like the other kids in her Norwegian town, but her embarrassingly unconventional, modernist architect parents see things differently. Academy Award-winning animator Torill Kove weaves memory and fantasy together in this droll and charming look at the pain of childhood alienation.
Short directed by Lotte Reiniger.
With the help of his groundhog friend, an alpine ski aficionado dreams of international fame by achieving the greatest downhill run of all time.
A mere sight of a gray wolf terrifies the entire village. There’s just one little girl who can empathize with the wolf and even make friends with him.
All vile things must come to an end, and for Daria Morgendorffer that means it's time to look beyond high school to college. Our little girl has grown up so fast. It's time for higher learning, lowered expectations, and a heavy dose of sarcasm. Life can't suck more after high school, can it?
Adventure awaits 12 year old Brendan who must fight Vikings and a serpent god to find a crystal and complete the legendary Book of Kells. In order to finish Brother Aiden's book, Brendan must overcome his deepest fears on a secret quest that will take him beyond the abbey walls and into the enchanted forest where dangerous mythical creatures hide. Will Brendan succeed in his quest?
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