London International Animation Festival 2013 – Best of Show

02 December 2013 // Reviews

Tom Sanders

Writer

So this year I finally got round to going to the London Animation Festival and what a visual treat it was. Sunday (3rd Nov) night’s Best of Show featured a great feast of talent which had won awards across the festival.

All boded well late night at the Barbican as the cinema was full to bursting. The first film up was Astigmatismo by Spanish director Nicolai Trashinsky. Created in a cut-out style, the film portrays a boy who, having had his glasses stolen, is plunged into a world without vision and has to understand everything around him through noises only. This conjures up a lot of very surreal and often disturbing imagery as you’re thrust around a world that dips in and out of focus.

From that we flew into the world of Wind. A great series of gags that revolve around the fact that the constant gale force winds of this world make everyone walk and do things at a 45 degree angle; A favourite gag had to be the man who has a huge bag of hats due to them constantly being swept off his head. For the sheer amount of laughs alone this is certainly one to search out for. Director Robert Loebel, I’m sure, must have had tons more jokes that didn’t make the cut. Sequel?

The End, directed by Ulu Pikkov, showed us what it would be like if a 100 year old video tape could show us what it had done in it’s lifetime. Quick flickering cuts revealing old foil stock race past the screen before the film dies and gives way to the digital era. Winner of best abstract film – it was certainly well suited.

Picking up our spirits was the long-awaited film by Daniel Sousa, Feral. This beautiful creation tells the story of a young feral child and his troubled adaption into normal life, when all he wants is to live back in the wild. A stunning hand-drawn film that really captures the essence of what this medium can do. The lighting helps to bring the story to life, setting the sometimes quite troubling mood. With a break into full colour from quite neutral tones at the end, this film certainly delivers on all levels.

The strangely satisfying Michael Frei film, Plug and Play, graced the screen next with a very innuendo led piece. Coloured in black and white that inverts depending on the situation, it stars a cast of people with either plugs or sockets as heads.

Last of the individual programme awards was Rabbitland, a stop-motion story of a world inhabited by brainless pink rabbits directed by Ana Nedsljkovic from Serbia. Showing a typical day in their life where they must vote for the their leaders, the evil girls, this vivid and somewhat disturbing film is accompanied by a terrific narration.

Moving onto the overall Best Of Show awards, the prize for Best Sound and Music was won by Choir Tour directed by Edmunds Jansons. The name says it all – a great piece dictated entirely by the score. A choir group along with their teacher head off for a night in a hotel, when chaos takes over and the choir runs amock culminating in a great lift chase sequence. A deserved winner with every high and low, to and fro perfectly married in both motion and sound.

The award for Visual Innovation went to an unimaginable creation by director Andrew Huang for Solipsist. A truly mesmerising CG film that complements and intertwines seamlessly between fantasy and live action. A three-parter that constantly evolves and squirms reaching three different crescendos. Striking, vivid coloured materials and weird surreal objects encapsulate people and create stunning creatures. Very hard to explain but beautiful to watch.

Best British Film in a British film festival is always something you look forward to and director Felix Massie certainly doesn’t disappoint with In the Air is Christopher Gray. This minimalist childhood story is brilliantly imagined and reveals the story of a Christopher Gray who is eager to impress a girl called Stacy. Along with his friends he attempts to jump a snake on his bike with somewhat tragic consequences. A great little film that keeps a simplistic style to engage the audience fully into the story.

Finally came the Best Film of the Festival. This years winner was Futon directed by Japanese director Yoriko Mizushuri. A wonderful film delving into the depths of a woman wrapped in a futon, in that heady balance of asleep and awake. With soft colours and delicate animation that slips in and out of different images and shots seamlessly, you to want to curl up and drift off as you watch. As the blurb states ‘everything melts pleasantly together’ until you are totally wrapped up in the film. The perfect way to end a Sunday evening.

Altogether the films were a triumph and hats off to LIAF for awarding all these great films with the accolades they so rightly deserve. I’m already looking forward to next year.