April 1, Thursday, 7:30PM
Curator's Eye: "Animated Documentary"
Balagan continues collaborating with local filmmakers and curators to put together thematic programs.
This program is curated by the local filmmaker Jessica Meistrich Gidal:

"The animated documentary, a collision of two seemingly incompatible genres, takes the viewer on a trip to the artist's mind's eye, a place with equal power as the verite camera lens to distill and present reality. This show of contemporary animated non-fiction shorts from around the world will feature filmmakers who combine their animation with traditional documentary techniques -- like man-on-the street interviews and reenactments – and others who animate the interviewee's own artwork, use stop-motion to interpret landscapes, or meditate on actual events for which there is no visual documentation. Through unabashed subjectivity, these films shine a bright light on the constructed and fabricated nature of the traditional documentary. Featured artists include: Bob Sabiston, Steve Woods, Sheila Sofian, Vivienne Jones, Dennis Tupicoff, Joe King, Ellie Lee, Steven Subotnick and the Southern Ladies Animation Group."

Roadhead 14min, video, 1998, USA
Director: Bob Sabiston

Filmmakers Bob Sabiston & Tommy Pallotta drove from New York to Austin, stopping along the way for roadside interviews with everyday folks. A group of twelve artists animated the images using Sabiston's proprietary software. The result is a chaotic, visually arresting series of real-life cartoon portraits.

Bob Sabiston was a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab between 1986 and 1991. He moved to Austin, TX in 1993. Under the name Flat Black Films, he has made several short films, including "God’s Little Monkey" and "Snack & Drink". He has directed animated projects for MTV and PBS. For the past few years, he has been developing rotoscoping software – a Macintosh application for interpolating hand-drawn lines and shapes over video footage. Bob and a crew of thirty Austin painters used the software to animate Richard Linklater's feature film "Waking Life". Bob continues to develop software and to make films that creatively utilize technology such as "The Perfect Human" one of the five ‘obstructions’ in Jorgen Leth and Lars von Trier’s recent release, "The Five Obstructions". The animated short is Leth’s answer to von Trier’s challenge: “This one must be a cartoon – because I know you hate cartoons and I don’t like them either.”

it's like that 7.5min, video, 2004, Australia
Director: The Southern Ladies Animation Group

"it’s like that" is an animated film that presents the stories of three children held under the Australian Migration Act of mandatory detention for asylum seekers. Based on telephone interviews recordings, the children, depicted as caged birds, reflect on their environment, the food and what they think Australia is like “outside.” "it’s like that" was created collaboratively by the Southern Ladies Animation Group (S.L.A.G), a group of independent animators based in Melbourne Australia.

In 1921 in Berlin a young Armenian shot and killed an ex-Turkish government minister. In the trial that follows, a more heinous crime is revealed.

After night classes in the National College of Art and Design in 1983, the only animation course available at the time, Steve Woods began working in corporate videos. In 1987 he was commissioned to make 26 one-minute pieces for RTE children's programming and in 1988 and 1989 he helped found the Galway Film Centre and the Galway Film Fleadh, respectively. Returning to Dublin, Steve took up teaching at Ballyfermot in 1990 and later at Dun Laoghaire in 1994. He also wrote a regular animation column for Film Ireland magazine for two years and co-programmed the first three Irish Animation Festivals at the Irish Film Centre. Steve was also Artist in Residence at Sutton Park School producing the short "Spaced Out". Since then he has created "Timmy the Ticket" (1994), "Ireland 1848" (1996), "Window" (1998); and the live action documentary "Estella" (2000).

A Conversation With Haris 6min, 16mm, 2001, USA
Director: Sheila M. Sofian

An 11-year old Bosnian immigrant to the US recounts his experiences in the war in his homeland.

“The film is beautifully made using painted animation, and, set against Haris’ thoughts on the war and the deaths of so many of his close family, the film illustrates how startlingly adult a child’s thoughts can be.” – Mark Rabinowitz, indieWire

A Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, Sheila Sofian has produced five independent animated films. She has received grants from the Roy W. Dean Film Grant, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Women in Film Foundation and the Pew Fellowships in the Arts, as well as a residency at the MacDowell Colony. Her award-winning films have been shown at numerous international and domestic film festivals, and have been televised on WHYY’s "Independent Images", WYBE’s "Through the Lens" and WTTW’s “Image Union”. Her films are distributed educationally and in home video markets. Sheila’s freelance work includes animation for the feature film Closetland, titles for the feature film "10 Things I Hate About You and MTV". Sheila is currently Chair of the Animation Program at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, California. She has a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts.

Glass Crow 5min, video, 2004, USA
Director: Steven Subotnick

A meditation on the Defenestration of Prague, the spark which began the Thirty Years War. Richly layered images explore the worlds of nature, humanity, and heaven during this moment in history.

Steven Subotnick came to animation from studies in painting, anthropology and film. His recent works include "Devil's Book", a collaged and calligraphic abstraction inspired by a story by Isaac Perez and "Hairyman" an associative fable based on American folktales. He has taught animation at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, at Rhode Island School of Design, and at Harvard University, and has worked as a free-lance animator and director. He has written a book for Focal Press titled, Animation in the Home Digital Studio, designed to encourage and empower the amateur animator. Currently, he is designing interactive animation for a project designed to teach children music.

His Mother’s Voice 14.5min, video, 1997, Australia
Director: Dennis Tupicoff

An exploration of an unexpected death.

“By presenting just two of the many possible points of view that might accompany the voice of Mrs. Kathy Easdale,’ [Tupicoff says,] ‘I hope the film leaves the audience to imagine others, and to ponder its own response to her pain.’ The film itself tells the audience that what we see is not an absolute; the same events narrated by the same person can be observed, interpreted, and experienced in many different ways.” – Emru Townsend, Animation World Magazine

After graduating from Queensland University in 1970, Dennis Tupicoff worked as an archivist and teacher before making his first animated film in Toowoomba. He moved to Melbourne and the Swinburne Film and TV School animation course in 1977. While sometimes making a living with TV ads and other commercial and sponsored work, and later teaching at the VCA School of Television (1992-4), he has made both animated and live-action independent films as writer, director, producer, and animator.

Survey 4.5min, video, 2002, UK
Director: Joe King

"Survey" is the result of a photographic tour of South Wales. The film captures some unique architecture and landscapes creating a rhythmic study of the area, breathing life into buildings and structures. It is made almost entirely from photographic stills.

Joe King is an artist working across the field of moving image, using innovative techniques and animation to combine and manipulate photographs, film, video and sound. Joe graduated from the University of Wales College Newport with a degree in film and photography and went on to teach animation before attending the Royal College of Art. Joe is still teaching in the Animation Masters degree course at the Royal College of Art. His films have been screened around the world at international film festivals and broadcast on television. He also creates visuals for bands such as U2 and Elastica. Joe has produced and directed his own commissioned pieces and is also a director for Slinky Pictures in London.

Ireland 1848 10min, video, 1996, Ireland
Director: Steve Woods

Designed as a pioneering film in the mid 19th Century might have looked like, "Ireland 1848" looks at the effect harrowing pictures of the Great Irish Famine may have had on a Victorian audience.

Repetition Compulsion 6min, 16mm on video, 1997, USA
Director: Ellie Lee

This animated documentary explores how prolonged childhood abuse in the lives of homeless women has set the stage for further victimization on the streets. Born directly out of the filmmaker’ experience of working for four years with homeless women who had suffered long, unaddressed histories of physical and sexual abuse, "Repetition Compulsion" gives voice and vision to these women’s stories of abuse and survival.

“Making full use of animation’s power to convey a nightmare, Repetition Compulsion burrows intimately into the world of battered women. Thoroughly deserving of the grand prize, Lee’s film is more enlightening in its seven minutes than a stack of documentaries or dramas.” -The Boston Globe

Ellie Lee is a director of fiction, documentary and animated films which have screened in over 100 film festivals worldwide. Her animated documentary,"Repetition Compulsion", premiered at the 1998 Berlin Film Festival and was nominated for a 1998 National Emmy Award for documentary achievement. Her fiction short, "Dog Days", won top honors at the 2000 Hamptons and Florida Film Festivals. She is currently directing documentary episodes for a new PBS children's series, "Postcards from Buster", and is in development on her next films. She is a 2004 Rockefeller/Ford Foundation Media Arts Fellow.

Faith & Patience 5.5min, 16mm, 1991, USA
Director: Sheila M. Sofian

A conversation with a four-year old girl about her newborn sister.

The House 8.5min, video, 2003, UK
Director: Vivienne Jones

Combining animation and live action, "The House" tells a story of a group of women with mental health problems. Through their own drawings it highlights aspects of their everyday lives, their dreams and aspirations, who they are and what they have been.

Vivienne Jones first moved to London in 1984 to study Theatre Costume at Wimbledon School of Art. She worked as a theatre designer and costume prop maker for many years and then completed a degree in Animation at West Surrey College of Art & Design in 1992. A year after finishing college she was the Animator in Residence at The Museum of The Moving Image, later teaching evening classes there. Her film, "Touch Wood", was developed at the museum and then commissioned by Channel Four. She worked as a workshop leader for Shape, a disability awareness organization and was given a grant by The London Production Fund to develop and produce "The House". She currently works as a freelance animation director and assistant costume designer for television and film and recently worked on "Harry Potter" and the upcoming "Bridget Jones" movie.