Darkness and light, as seen by VIFF’s favourite Buddhist erotist. Part of the TOKYO LOOP animation anthology produced by ImageForum Japan.
Social & External
John's first independent work from 1989. Won Best of Fest Shorts at the Cinequest Film Festival, CA. The film is comprised of highly rendered drawings with very little moving parts to tell a complex story of relationships "gone to the birds".
Since this is lost the content of the film can only be presumed but it was supposedly depicted a schoolboy smoking his first cigar.
A young Polish partisan flees from the Warsaw Uprising. Whilst hiding in the yard of a countryside manor, he is chased up a tree by a large wolfhound. With his rifle out of reach, there seems to be no way to escape his predicament.
Wrapped in the futon... Memories are coming up to the mind, the future is imagined, senses are recaptured, physical feelings as a woman are deeply ingrained...Everything melts pleasantly all together. In the futon, the body wonders seeking for these sense...
An 8-minute satire on politics featuring the first French presidential election campaign broadcasts from 1965 and The Shadoks.
In a dark expanse that could be the cosmos, we hear the voice of Arthur C. Clarke, whose face - taken from a BBC archive dating back to the 1960s - appears in the distance. His features quickly dematerialize into a multitude of shimmering pixels, creating an enveloping and immersive space out of which the thoughts of the famed author of «2001: A Space Odyssey» emerge. At the heart of this spectral environment, and with a magnetic voice sending us back to the time of cathode ray tubes and the golden age of television broadcasting, A C. Clarke tells us about the arrival of digital revolution, decades ahead of his time. This film is an invitation to travel, and a crepuscular form of poetry to be experienced immersively.
Two thieving gloves try to snatch an apple.
A herd of war-torn and hungry rats tries to get an answer to the question of who is Lili Marleen from a mortally wounded young soldier stuck in a projectile funnel. Is it a reminder of first love or first relationship with a prostitute earning her daily bread? Lili Marleen is not just a distant heroine from a song. Every soldier boy has her own Lili, be it his first love from school or just an imagination. But always, no matter what happens, she is waiting for her soldier underneath the lantern by the barrack gate...
Experimental one minute corridor animation from Connor Griffith
A mysterious thief has stolen the prosperous Happy Valley's most prized possession: the musical Singing Harp. Can Mickey, Donald, and Goofy find the answer in the irritable Willie the Giant's magnificent castle up in the blue sky?
Alma, a little girl, skips through the snow covered streets of a small town. Her attention is caught by a strange doll in an antique toy shop window. Fascinated, Alma decides to enter.
A troubled relationship between a Cat & Mouse set in the distant future.
The [parody] of the opening credits of the "Simpsons" series, [but] with an original story and an all-new couch gag. (Shortverse)
Animated short film of Michelangelo set to Beethoven Symphony No. 5 - I. Allegro con brio.
Beckett cycles through a limited number of drawings, but adds new information to each drawing every time we see it, giving the sense of a world that is infinitely rich and also obviously contained tightly within the edges of the paper. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with iotaCenter and National Film Preservation Foundation in 2007.
“[T]he sense of moving forward [in space or time] alternates with a sense of expansion and contraction, as the finished cycle [of movement] returns to itself and rushes to catch up with its successor.” (Gadassik) Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with iotaCenter and National Film Preservation Foundation in 2007.
Utterly astounding, iridescent sand animation from Aleksandra Korejwo based around Bizet's Carmen.
A beautifully fluid sand animation inspired by Camille Saint-Saëns' piece, 'Danse Macabre.'
Avant-garde analog animation techniques in stark black and white dramatize the effect of white men’s violence on an African jungle.
Notorious killer whale Tilikum is responsible for the deaths of three individuals, including a top killer whale trainer. Blackfish shows the sometimes devastating consequences of keeping such intelligent and sentient creatures in captivity.
After the devastating events of Avengers: Infinity War, the universe is in ruins due to the efforts of the Mad Titan, Thanos. With the help of remaining allies, the Avengers must assemble once more in order to undo Thanos' actions and restore order to the universe once and for all, no matter what consequences may be in store.
During the 1980s, a failed stand-up comedian is driven insane and turns to a life of crime and chaos in Gotham City while becoming an infamous psychopathic crime figure.
A family is forced to live in silence while hiding from creatures that hunt by sound.
Husband and wife Gabe and Adelaide Wilson take their kids to their beach house expecting to unplug and unwind with friends. But as night descends, their serenity turns to tension and chaos when some shocking visitors arrive uninvited.
Princess Leia is captured and held hostage by the evil Imperial forces in their effort to take over the galactic Empire. Venturesome Luke Skywalker and dashing captain Han Solo team together with the loveable robot duo R2-D2 and C-3PO to rescue the beautiful princess and restore peace and justice in the Empire.
Tony Lip, a bouncer in 1962, is hired to drive pianist Don Shirley on a tour through the Deep South in the days when African Americans, forced to find alternate accommodations and services due to segregation laws below the Mason-Dixon Line, relied on a guide called The Negro Motorist Green Book.
In the 22nd century, a paraplegic Marine is dispatched to the moon Pandora on a unique mission, but becomes torn between following orders and protecting an alien civilization.
The adventures of a group of explorers who make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.
An Amazon princess comes to the world of Man in the grips of the First World War to confront the forces of evil and bring an end to human conflict.
Jack Torrance accepts a caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel, where he, along with his wife Wendy and their son Danny, must live isolated from the rest of the world for the winter. But they aren't prepared for the madness that lurks within.
Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.
Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet's exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence-a commodity capable of unlocking humanity's greatest potential-only those who can conquer their fear will survive.
Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.
Andy moves to New York to work in the fashion industry. Her boss is extremely demanding, cruel and won't let her succeed if she doesn't fit into the high class elegant look of their magazine.
After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell finds himself training a detachment of TOP GUN graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen.
From DC Comics comes the Suicide Squad, an antihero team of incarcerated supervillains who act as deniable assets for the United States government, undertaking high-risk black ops missions in exchange for commuted prison sentences.
Every second of every day, from the moment he was born, for the last thirty years, Truman Burbank has been the unwitting star of the longest running, most popular documentary-soap opera in history. The picture-perfect town of Seahaven that he calls home is actually a gigantic soundstage. Truman's friends and family - everyone he meets, in fact - are actors. He lives every moment under the unblinking gaze of thousands of hidden TV cameras.
The story of the miraculous evacuation of Allied soldiers from Belgium, Britain, Canada and France, who were cut off and surrounded by the German army from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk between May 26th and June 4th 1940 during World War II.
An other-worldly story, set against the backdrop of Cold War era America circa 1962, where a mute janitor working at a lab falls in love with an amphibious man being held captive there and devises a plan to help him escape.