1970
Not the rebels, but the rulers are the “heroes” of this story about the Polish protests of 1970. Stop-motion animation and archive recordings of telephone conversations bring the machinations of the Communist crisis team to life.
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Pathway: Animated Docs
At first site, a drawn reality appears subjective, mediated, and constructed. But then again, are narration or reenactment any closer to the real? Filming an event directly is not the be all and end all of pursuing documentary truth. Animation gives the filmmaker the opportunity to express themself even more precisely in the image and adjust the narrative to their will. The films in this set show the versatility of this documentary form in different manifestations, from expressionistic to impressionistic.
Films in this Pathway
Films in this Pathway
Crotch Stories
An exuberant animation film in which Myleine Guiard-Schmid asks whether giving birth can also be enjoyable, and receives answers from both mothers and midwives. She discovers, among other things, that an orgasm can help the delivery.
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Flee
The story of Amin, a gay man who fled Afghanistan in the 1980s, is told mostly in animation. Flee shows the unforgiving environment in which he lived, and the scars that remain from living as a second-class citizen.
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The Grannies
A small group of gamers playing Red Dead Online embark on a virtual journey of discovery to the boundaries of its world—and beyond. These modern pioneers boldly go where no one has gone before.
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locks & keys, water, trees
A moving journey through the life and mind of artist Penny Andrea, based entirely on her drawings. By studying her sketchbooks, she hopes to learn how a brain tumor shaped both her and her art.
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The Miracle Basket
A pop-up book brought to life tells a fairy tale about overconsumption, thoughtlessness, and environmental damage. There is a happy ending, but the story has a moral—as befits a fairy tale.
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Nelly’s Memory
A grandson of colonists in the Belgian Congo wants to know what life there was really like—behind the photos, letters, and films of his grandparents. As it turns out, this is a hopeless task. Silence and looking the other way were the essence of colonial life.
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Our Ark
Now that it’s technologically possible, we are trying to record virtually our entire world. In this video essay, Deniz Tortum and Kathryn Hamilton ask complex philosophical questions that are easily overlooked as developments hurtle ever onwards.
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Semiotic Plastic
Human existence imitated by plastic toys. Striking and witty, but often also rather sinister tableaux vivants lead us from birth to death, with every recognizable banality of human life along the way.
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Sikelela Tapes
A lively assemblage of fiction, animation, and YouTube videos about imperialism and the diffuse South African identity, in which five film students in Johannesburg examine their personal relationship with the national anthem.
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Skin
The walls in the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte are inundated with painted pictures and words: from stunning murals to old-school graffiti, and from enigmatic cries from the heart to furious cursing.
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