(43) Short Film Sunday #28: Goodbye Mister De Vries (2012)

Blank.

My dear readers, this weeks Short Film Sunday for some time will be the 28th Short Film Sunday and also the last. I have been thinking a lot about what I want to do, what I need to do and what are my passions, that makes my life fulfilled, as well as other existentialist questions about me as a being and about my being, that is existence. This blog was started first and foremost because I love writing and secondly, because I love films and cinema, I love the intimacy between the screen and the viewer that is created by darkness. When I write fiction I often think, how it would look on the screen, would it be a film, an animation, hand drawn or would it be stop-motion. Writing for me goes hand in hand with a film spurred by my imagination, same as reading.

Short films are quite often dismissed and forgotten, for me they often offer more than a feature film could ever offer - a short escape from reality. Despite the fact that this little project called Short Film Sunday made me realise how quickly time passes and how diverse this form of art can be, I need to put up a sign saying: "Gone for a short while."

I do not know, when there will be a next entry in this blog, but I am sure, that there will be a next one, maybe even next Sunday or Sunday after or in a few days, I am just saying that there will not be anymore guaranteed/promised posts on every Sunday. The reason is quite simple - I need more time for writing. I need to indulge more in literature, fiction, my stories and characters, I want them on paper and out of my head, so I can free some room up for future ideas and projects.

Now enough with explanations and smart talk, here you go this weeks Short Film Sunday, a lovely and heartfelt story about Mister De Vries, a lovely old man, who waits for his time to go. I stumbled upon Mascha Halberstad's created Goodbye Mister De Vries (2012) by accident, however the story has the same warmth around it as a story I wrote a couple of weeks ago.

Enjoy and goodbye my dear readers, just for a short while.

Yours truly,

Baiba.

P.S. As promised, there will be a review of "My Lunches with Orson" edited by Peter Biskind and it will hopefully happen some time soon.

P.P.S. Don't forget that Bates Motel is back with Season 2 on March 3. You still have time to watch Season 1 in case you missed it. You can read my review on Season 1 here.

(29) Short Film Sunday #15: Out of a Forest (2010)

Out of a Forest (2010).

Out of a Forest (2010) is a little stop motion animated gem masterfully directed by Tobias Gundorff Boesen as his Bachelor degree film from  The Animation Workshop, it has deservedly won several awards and has been screened in quite a few film festivals.

Set in the woods surrounding Viborg (that makes me want to return to Denmark), Denmark and accompanied The National's song "Slow Show", it is a fantastic combination of a dark dreamlike story with a twist and happy out of a hat ending. The little hare family reminds me of bed time stories from my childhood, as well as, of my stuffed toy hare.

Have a nice cup of tea, sit back, enjoy and see for yourself what happens with the hare family!

P.S. Also give a listen to the new The National album "Trouble Will Find Me", a superb album.

(22) Short Film Sunday #9: Slow Derek (2011)

Slow Derek (2011).

Today is the last day of Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival, to mark that I am presenting to you the short that received the Grand Prix, Animated Encounters, in 2011: Slow Derek. However, that is not the only award that film has won. The stop motion animation Slow Derek is directed by Dan Ojari, who is a graduate of the Royal College of Art, with an MA in Animation, he has won several awards both as a director and as an animator.

Slow Derek is an epic and fascinating tale of an office worker Derek, who "struggles with the true speed of planet Earth". The short ties together Derek's slow and mundane life with the dizzying rotation of planet Earth. It is clever and, I would dare to say, a scientific short, which leaves you thinking, how we all still hold onto this world?

Ojari described the plot of Slow Derek to shortoftheweek.com as:

"very much about relativity and the contrast between the mundane and the colossal. The starting point was after I became particularly fascinated with how fast the earth is travelling, especially because we don’t feel this speed. We are literally hurtling through space at hundreds of thousands of miles per hour and yet don’t feel a thing. I felt this was, aside from being an amazing actual fact, also was an interesting metaphor for modern day life."

Hope you enjoyed this little spellbinding short that deals with such big issues, and stop by in couple of days to read my piece on the IdeasTap organised panel discussion that was a part of this years Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival: Film Industry Road Map.

(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!