(17) Short Film Sunday #4: Luminaris (2011)

Luminaris (2011).

Sunday is here, which means it's time for Short Film Sunday. For this week I have picked an animated stop-motion Luminaris directed by Argentinian director Juan Pablo Zaramella. The film is made using a technique called pixilation, it is a form of animation, where live actors are animated frame by frame. Pixilation is a slow and laborious process, since every single frame needs to be composed and then shot separately. Because of the weather changes, the movement of the sun, hereof also shadows would change the position every day of filming, it took more than two years for Juan Pablo Zaramella to make this 6 min long short film.

Luminaris is set in Buenos Aires, but revisited from somehow a surrealistic point of view, and it tells a story of a city in which sunlight is a magnetic and controlling force. In the morning, as the sun rises, all the light bulb factory workers are drawn to their work. Within the factory they are all in their little cubicles making light bulbs, however one of these cubicles is different, because in it a young man is determined to change something about his otherwise predictable life.

The short has received many awards and honors, and in 2011 it was shortlisted for Academy Awards as Best Animated Short Film.

It is one of my favourite shorts and stop-motion has always fascinated me, I hope you enjoy!