Animation has long been a mode used by filmmakers to express an ‘inner life’ that could not be represented though live action cinema. This programme explores the way animation has engaged with first person narratives to express the otherwise inexpressable.
The London International Animation Festival is the UK’s largest and longest-running festival totally dedicated to the artform, each year celebrating independently-made animated shorts from all around the world. Over the last 16 years we have screened more than 4,000 of the wildest, gut-wrenching, utterly bonkers and gob-smackingly beautiful films made by some of the most imaginative artists on the planet. It’s time for some of these films to get another airing.
We have dug deep into the LIAF archives to find several gems that explore this theme and show that this most imaginative of artforms can go to places that no other artform can. The programme will include the following titles and one or two other ‘surprises’ on the night.
At Barbican, book tickets
In Dreams (Samuel Blain, UK)
A group of people swap their heads to help illustrate their most recurrent or memorable dreams.
2011, 4min
Tad’s Nest (Petra Freeman, UK)
The Place where eels mature before being compelled to return to a location using only memories of sensations to guide them.
2009, 5min
Coda (Alan Holly, UK)
A lost soul stumbles drunkenly through the city. In a park, Death finds him and shows him many things.
2014, 9min
The Empty Space (Ulo Pikkov, Estonia)
A past memory, an apartment that once existed, and a small girl playing there. A reconstruction of a vision of the anxieties in the 1950s Soviet Union.
2016, 10min
Strange Wonderful (Stephanie Swart, USA)
A bubble eyed cacophony of indescribable schemes from the other side of this guy’s mental looking glass.
2013, 4min
Snowfall (Conor Whelan, Ireland)
An anxious young man has a moving experience at a friend’s house party. Fleeting love, mixed emotions and human interactions.
2014, 5min
An Eyeful of Sound (Samantha Moore, UK)
The fascinating complex internal world of audio-visual synaesthesia is discussed, dissected and celebrated in this beautifully sensitive animated documentary.
2010, 10min
Mr Madila or The Colour of Nothing (Rory Waudby-Tolley, UK)
A series of conversations between the filmmaker and a gifted spiritual healer, exploring the inner mind, the fabric of the universe, and the nature of reality itself.
2015, 9min
House of Unconsciousness (Priit Tender, Estonia)
A man must navigate a bizarre hell of his own making if he is to control the fire that consumes all that matters to him.
2015, 11min
