Mathieu Labaye "Orgesticulanismus", 2008

"Orgesticulanismus" is a beautifully animated and really touching short film directed by Mathieu Labaye in honor of his father who in an interview at the beginning of the film explains what it means to him to live with disability.

A must see.

Orgesticulanismus

Bill Blympton "Idiots and Angels", 2008

Bill Plympton, master of animation and wonderful weird tales is back with a feature film this year that tells the story of an reluctant angel.

Trailer

Plympton describes the genesis for the feature on the film's website:
"The first recollection I have of the concept was an event in 2005, when I was walking with a student at the Lille Short Film Festival in France, and he asked me what my next feature would be about. I declared, off-handedly, that it would be about an angel who didn’t want his wings, and as we discussed the idea, I really got to like the concept. That night, in my hotel room, I started to explore the dramatic possibilities of a reluctant angel.
At that point, I had just finished production on “Hair High”, and although I thought it was a great film and would make me rich, it was a very difficult production - so, I decided that “Idiots and Angels” would be the exact opposite of “Hair High”.
While “Hair High” was bright and colorful and fully animated, “Idiots” would be monochromatic and more limited in its animation. While “Hair High” had big-name actors providing voices, “Idiots” would only have music and sound effects, no dialogue at all. My new short film “Shuteye Hotel” was a short rehearsal, an experiment done in the new style of “Idiots and Angels”.
Because this film has no dialogue, I wanted music to play throughout - almost like a long opera - or an extended string of music videos. The look of the film is very Eastern European - something like what Jan Svankmayer might make, or David Lynch if he made animation - very dark and surreal."
Official Website

Lee Walton, Artist

And now for something a bit more substantial American artist/performer Lee Walton needs little more than one simple action repeated in different places by different people (friends or picked at random) or with different objects to reveal an unexpected, often funny and rather incongruous world we live in.

Just Walk Away


Let's Push Things Forward



Pulling Strings



Lee Walton's website

Kraak & Smaak "Squeeze Me", Dir: Andre Maat & Superelectric, 2008

Flipbook rules yes, but this should be the end of the trend. It's really well executed. You can just imagine how long these guys must have spent taking all the stills and putting this together. It works very well. Nice job.

Andre Maat's website

Superelectric's website

Flairs "Better Than Prince", Dir: Jonas & Francois, 2008

There is something about 2D animation that makes it THE technique of the season really.
And although this music video is nothing new at all there's some quirky ideas in the animation which make it worth watching.

Better Than Prince

LeLe "breakfast", Dir: Piet Parra, 2008

Now I'll just be honest and say that this track is utter rubbish, some might find it offensive to their hears in more than one way. It's bad club techno stuff and if that's not your trip do turn the sound off before you watch. Some people may like it but I just hate it. Oh well.

Nevertheless Dutch illustrator Piet Parra's animation here is fun and that I like a lot. Quite in the air du temps if you see what I mean (2D animation, quite flowing, illustrator led). So I couldnt dismiss this one just because of the music.

His Website :