During the ANIMASIVO 2014 festival we present the premieres in Mexico of the films Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? by Michel Gondry and Truth Has Fallen by Sheila M. Sofian, as well as an international short film series. In addition, Animæntary Lab starts a laboratory for advising Mexican animated documentary projects.
PROJECTS. Animæntary LAB.
Chamaedorea Elegans, The Pulp of the Dollar. Esteban Azuela.
The Sierra de Los Tuxtlas in Veracruz, offers the optimal conditions to cultivate under any shade the palm Chamaedorea Elegans, a short plant with a radiant green foliage that, rumored, is the one that gives the chromatic dye with its pulp to the US dollar bills. Hundreds of truck trips move the foliage in refrigeration of an easily growing plant to Washington every year, and that anyone who sows guarantees safe weights in return.
What is the money? Simon Gerbaud
There is a first answer to the voluntarily innocent and idiotic question: What is money? It is a social construction and belongs to the imaginary (that of belief and phantasmagoria). In that sense, this project is not only about portraying a polymorphic object, but also about exploring the confusing relationship we have as users with it: What is the imaginary of money?
Parapet books. Carlos Azcuaga.
A Mexican family product of Spanish exile receives news about an inheritance for a property in the Canary Islands expropriated by Franco in 1948. The resolution comes after 25 years of legal battle of Mrs. Lucía Álamo, who has located the descendants of the owners originals of the land to deliver their share. Among them, Jorge Hernández Millares, historian and Canarian poet, Republican fighter forced to leave homeland and family to go to a concentration camp, embark towards Mexico in 1939 and years later become my grandfather.
Transhumant. Viviana Cavazos.
Series of short animated documentaries that portray Mexico City through the gaze and foreign perspective of migrants who have come by their own choice. Thus showing sides of the city that their own inhabitants do not always capture.
About. Maribel Martínez, Edmée Pardo
Animated documentaries are a way of seeing the reality that hurts and makes us feel helpless. They are also a two-way path: the text and words deepen the wound; the animation softens it. We have chosen this language, through 10 animated shorts of 16 minutes, to open a window before the door that we always close.
Beware the vampire. Jesús Prieto, Daniel Iriarte.
According to legend, the old water mill located in Zarozje, Serbia, has been the home of the legendary vampire Sava Savanovic for centuries. Until last winter, when the mill sank because of the weight of the snow accumulated on its roof.
Since then, strange events occur in Zarozje, including deaths, and the neighbors think that Sava Savanovic roams alone and without dwelling in the region, claiming new victims.
Only by rebuilding the old mill, their supposed home, they will be able to quench the vampire's thirst for blood.
Tracing. Mariana Torres.
Sigifredo and Teresa are a couple of older adults. Sigifredo, 81, has Parkinson's, which quickly leaves him without mobility, just as he gradually affects and erases his memory and sanity, and with them the identity of what he once was. A story, a journey, through memory to redraw and draw a story, a life, an identity.
SHORT FILMS
Is the man who is tall happy? Michel Gondry
Truth has fallen. Sheila M. Sofian
PROJECTED MOVIES
Dennis Tupicoff Australia/Francia, 2011. 15’
Sheila Sofian EUA, 2002. 5’54’’
Balbina Bruszewska Polonia, 2009. 14’50’’
Afarin Eghbal Reino Unido, 2011. 9’16’’
Rodrigo de la Vega México, 2012. 3’30’’
David Aronowitsch y Hanna Heilborn Suecia, 2008. 15’ 45’’
Jonas Odell Suecia, 2010. 13’42’’
Josh Raskin EUA, 2007. 5’10’’
Bob Sabiston EUA, 2004. 14’29’’
Carlos Smith/Marcelo Dematei Colombia/España. 2014. 5’34’’
Chris Landreth Canadá, 2004. 13’ 50’’
Hanna Heilborn y David Aronowitsch Suecia, 2012 12’46’’