At the Barbican book tickets
“I’ve always had access to other worlds. We all do. Because we dream.”
Leonora Carrington (1917-2011)
A selection of shorts inspirited by the esoteric art of Leonora Carrington, whose work was influenced by Irish folklore, psychoanalysis, the alchemical imagery of Hieronymus Bosch, and much more besides. These works share her love of experimentation, symbolism, the spirit world, and its creatures, as well as touching on the violence ever present in the human world. The therapeutic act of making art and imagining a more harmonious and hospitable world beyond our own, is present in these works as much as it is in Carrington’s.
As with many previously overlooked female artists, Carrington’s standing as an eminent artist is now more widely celebrated. In 2022, her work has been exhibited in ‘Surrealism Beyond Borders’ at Tate Modern, and the Venice Biennale’s title ‘The Milk of Dreams’ a tribute to the children’s book created from the fantastical stories she invented for her sons.
Following the screening, a panel discussion will take place with featured filmmakers Anna Bunting-Branch, Renee Zhan and Réka Bucsi, academic Carmen Hannibal and programmer Abigail Addison.
Figures in Focus, (previously called Female Figures) was devised in 2017 by Abigail, in recognition of the under-representation of female and non-binary animators and their stories within the independent animation sector. The programme showcases incredible work crafted by contemporary animators, both in the UK and internationally.
CW: Violence, blood, pregnancy
After the screening several of the filmmakers will take to the stage to discuss their work.
Speakers
Abigail Addison
Abigail is a Producer and Programmer. She is a Director of Animate Projects, an agency working at the intersection of film, art, and animation, that produces award winning, innovative and experimental films. Additionally, she is the Training and Development Producer at production company Lupus Films. Abigail has been the Animation Programmer at Edinburgh International Film Festival since 2020 and has curated the Figures in Focus programme at London International Animation Festival since 2017.
Anna Bunting-Branch
Anna is an artist and researcher based in London. Moving between painting, writing, and animation, her work explores science fiction as a methodology to re-vision feminist practice and its histories. Her work has been presented internationally and she has published work in The Sociological Review, Fandom as Methodology, MAP Magazine and Art Licks. She received a Prix Ars Electronica Honorary Mention for Computer Animation in 2021 and an Arts Council England Project Grant in 2019.
Carmen Hannibal
Carmen is a PhD Candidate in Animation Studies at the Royal College of Art. She has published in mediaesthetics – Journal of Poetics of Audiovisual Images, Animation Studies, and the online educational resource platform Fantasy/Animation. She is also the convenor for the Society for Animation Studies special interest group Figurative Meaning and Metamorphosis in Animation, and she has recently co-organised the international research symposium TIMES OF METAPHOR.
Renee Zhan
Renee is a Chinese-American director and animator. In her films, Renee is primarily interested in exploring topics of the body, nature, sexuality – all things beautiful, ugly, and squishy. Renee is an alumnus of Berlinale Talents and the Sarabande Foundation. Her short films have screened and won awards internationally including Annecy, Locarno, AFI Fest, Telluride, TIFF, SXSW, a British Animation Award, an Annie Award and BIFA nomination, BAFTA LA shortlist, and the Jury Prize for Animated Short at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.
Réka Bucsi
Réka is a Hungarian animator who graduated from Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in 2013. Her graduation film ‘Symphony No.42’ was shortlisted for the Oscars in 2014. Her films have screened at many film festivals worldwide and have been awarded prizes several times. Réka was one of the Berlinale Shorts International Jury members at the 2020 Berlinale, she was a speaker at Pictoplasma and a guest teacher at the California Institute of Arts in 2019. Réka was invited to become a new member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in 2021.
Eager – Allison Schulnik, USA
A riotous, fantasy world, populated by a cast of human and non-human creatures, united in a state of continuous transformation as they dance, slice each other open, and wear one another’s bodies.
2014 8 min
The Linguists – Anna Bunting-Branch, UK
Inspired by Láadan, the constructed ‘women’s language’, developed by Suzette Haden Elgin in her sci- fi trilogy ‘Native Tongue’ (1984-94).
2017 8 min
Impossible Figures and Other Stories II – Marta Pajek, Poland
While rushing around the house, a woman falls and trips. Getting up, she discovers that her home has unusual features – it is built from paradoxes, filled with illusions and covered with patterns.
2016 15 min
Tears of Inge – Alisi Telengut, Canada
When a mother camel has a painful childbirth, she rejects her newborn baby. Mongolian nomads sing and play sad songs to the camel who, touched by the melody, cries just as a human might do.
2013 5 min
Kamakura (Snow Hut) – Yoriko Mizushiri, Japan
The snow in Yoriko’s hometown is soft and innocently beautiful. This film is calm and clean as much as the snow she remembers. There is no questionable or hidden meaning. All the movements and expressions are simple and universal.
2013 6 min
Hell Hath No Furie – Kitty Faingold, UK
It’s the early 1990s, and after a millennial slumber, three Classical Ancient Furies are resurrected and re-imagined living in a flat somewhere within the Bowels of Hell.
2018 6 min
LOVE – Réka Bucsi, Hungary
A short film describing affection in 3 different chapters, through its impact on a distant solar system.
2016 15 min
Histoire pour 2 Trompettes – Amandine Meyer, France
An initiatory and intimate story in which the author tells, in the form of a tale, the key stages of her construction as a woman and an artist.
2021 5 min
O Black Hole! Renee Zhan, UK
A woman who can’t stand the passing of time sucks everyone and everything she loves inside herself to keep them with her forever. Eventually, she turns into a black hole. A thousand unchanging years pass inside her dark embrace until one day, the Singularity wakes.
2020 16 min
Our Funding Partner
Event supported by Film Hub London, managed by Film London. Proud to be a partner of the BFI Film Audience Network, funded by the National Lottery.
