Description

Fantasia presents the fourth annual CELLULOID EXPERIMENTS, our program of eye-popping experimental short films from all over the world, an event that bends the rules of time, narrative and editing. We have rounded up some 20 one-of-a-kind films that push the moviegoing experience as far as it will go. Take a hypnotic audiovisual journey that is often psychedelic and always unpredictable!

From France comes KINO by Armel Hostiou, a celebration of cinema, and Christian Bahier’s 100 % , a sendup of the last French election. Spain treats us to 1+1=3 and CRICKET by Rafaël, both tributes to vinyl records and popular culture, and the disturbing THE ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS FROM NEBULA-5 by Chema García Ibarra. Brazil is represented by THE SOUL DETECTIVE by Oliveira Pinheiro, a cryptic film starring David Lynch as himself! The U.K. contributes the video poem NORTH CIRCULAR by Michael Salkeld while New Zealand astounds with the strange and vibrant NEW EDUCATIONAL SERIES - CANARIES IN COLOUR by Jill Kennedy. Have you ever wondered what a stop-motion film made with hair would look like? Icelander Una Lorenzen answers the question with her intriguing IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING. Japan’s Takafumi Tsuchiya ignites the imagination with his contemplative WITH RAIN. Our American neighbours show up in force with six outstanding productions. 6 GEMINI by Rossana Jeran is a metaphor for power, ALICE’S ATTIC by Robyn Yannoukos is an unsettling, stop-motion foray into a dark attic. DEATH OF THE REEL by Benjamin Meade is a surreal defense of film preservation starring director Guy Maddin as himself. I DON’T SLEEP I DREAM by J.P. Chan plunges us into an anguished and dreamlike road movie, and OVER THE RIVER AND THROUGH THE HIGHER DIMENSIONS, by Dillon Markey, tells the astonishing tale of a young man whose grandmother sends him a time and space machine, while Christina Won’s nightmarish WHITE RADISH portrays a deliberately strange world where every action has dire consequences. Canada stands out with the hilarious animated film CATTLE CALL by Mike Maryniuk & Matthew Rankin—a cattle auction has never been quite this animated. Québec steps up to the plate with the super-short films SANS TITRE by Samuel Leblanc and MIMV by Daniel Faubert. CELLULOID EXPERIMENTS also pays tribute to TIND by screening six of their micro-shorts.

—Marc Lamothe (translated by Traduction Semantikos)