Oct 13, 2021

Animation Nation III


On September 26 the third Animation Nation festival took place in Philadelphia as part of both The Women's Film Festival and the Fringe Festival. I was there for this festival of animated shorts mostly by women animators.

Among the highlights were Synchronicity by Michelle Brand, stop motion animation Raymonde or the Vertical Escape by Sarah Van Den Boom, and from Canada, Threads by Torril Kove. Kove made one of my favorites, My Grandmother Ironed the King's Shirts.

Several of the shorts had serious political and social messages such as THEM by Robin Lochman, Sheri by Rebecca Stern, Turning by Random Acts, and Incidents by Swedish director Jessica Laurén, which chronicles her experiences evading sexual predators.

Two of the shorts were reminicent of works by PIXAR; the silly yet gruesome Wild Love by Paul Autric, Quentin Camus, Léa Georges, Maryka Laudet, Zoé Sottiaux, and Corentin Yvergniaux, students of animation school Ecole des Nouvelles Images; and Luz (this is the trailer) by John Banana of Digital Banana Studio.

It's a dynamic and powerful collection of animated shorts, assembled by Programming Director Suzi Nash. I'd previously attended Animation Nation I in 2018, which I wrote about in this old post. Somehow Animation Nation II slipped past me. I'll be keeping an eye out for IV.