This animated short explores the connections between sex, love and technology. A woman connects to the Internet. She not only embraces technology but surrenders to it entirely as she sends her entire body and soul to her electronic lover. In this world of Pandora's boxes, sexual desire and dehumanizing machine intertwine till they're finally and brutally disconnected.
In this animated short, a woman, taking on her lover's fantasies, adorns herself in her finest feathers and assumes a seductive but demeaning role. Caught up in his own game, the man plays on to the bitter end--a cruel game in which love is stripped of its golden glow, leaving only the naked reality of dependency and desperation.
A young woman works as an exotic dancer in a bar. She recalls an incident from her childhood in which she was physically abused by a male visitor. This inner journey brings back painful memories, including the obsessive image of a hat. Black-ink drawings, spare and rapidly executed, flow together in a succession of troubling and striking metamorphoses. The Hat is a tough, visceral experience. With naked honesty, animator Michèle Cournoyer invites the audience to share in the pain of a woman whose body is on display and whose soul is forever soiled. A film without words.
The main protagonist of this short, surreal film is a man obsessed with control. In an automated world drained of all emotion, he is tortured by vague longings. Will he be able to transcend his obsessions and fears?
This animated short is a lyrical exploration of the impact of war on women, their bodies and their families. Bringing a feminist sensibility to a contemporary issue, it looks at what happens when war insinuates itself inside the very being of a woman—she who once gave life.
Ghyslain Raza, better known as the “Star Wars Kid,” breaks his silence to reflect on our hunger for content and the right to be forgotten in the digital age.
Join filmmaker Brett Gaylor and mashup artist Girl Talk as they explore copyright and content creation in the digital age. In the process they dissect the media landscape of the 21st century and shatter the wall between users and producers. Creative Commons founder, Lawrence Lessig, Brazil's Minister of Culture, Gilberto Gil, and pop culture critic Cory Doctorow also come along for the ride.
Michèle Cournoyer came to the NFB with a background in the fine arts. During the 1970s, she made her own independent shorts, including a striking experimental collage films. Arriving at the NFB in the early 1990s, she would make inventive use of the rotoscope, a technique that allows animators to draw over live-action footage. She turned to a new medium with The Hat (1999), a work executed in ink. Rendered in minimalist black and white, the film addressed the difficult visual metaphors. The Hat won worldwide acclaim-and Cournoyer went on to tackle similarly challenging subjects with Accordion (2004) and the chilling Robes of War (2008). Mastering the art of film without words, she has left us speechless.
This interview is part of Making Movie History: A Portrait in 61 Parts.
In this animated short, two chimney sweepers clear all the memories from their victim's brain in a quest to determine what goes on in a man's head. A chilling film filled with fearsome puppets inhabiting a world of strange objects.
A particularly creative example of the pinscreen animation technique, this film is about an artist who steps inside his painting and wanders about in a landscape peopled with symbols that trigger unexpected associations. Film without words.
This documentary presents a few individuals for whom the Internet has become a way to connect with like-minded souls in surprising ways: a cyber punk based on an anti-aircraft rig in the English Channel who operates a rogue Web server, a monk developing "wireless prayer technology," a "gamer" who re-creates himself in an online game, a retired couple living in an Internet-controlled seniors' complex and a divorcée who exchanges vows online with a man she's never met.
Ages 13 to 17
Media Education - Consumerism
Social Studies - Contemporary Issues
Technology Education - Communications and Technology
A reflection on information and communications technologies. The evocative power of the metamorphoses here speaks to the computerization of society. Ask students to debate topical questions like connectivism, telematics, smart interfaces and online social media. Survey students about their opinions on the gradual shifting of the frontier between natural and artificial systems. What do they think about integrated interaction between living and synthetic organisms?