The Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF) has announced its Official Competition line up today. This year, the OIAF received 1,950 entries from 84 different countries. Of those, 92 short films — including Animated Series and VR (those finalists will be announced in August) — were selected for Competition.
Six films were chosen for the Feature Film Competition. In addition, 16 films were selected in the Canadian Student Competition and 41 Panorama films were chosen to represent the efforts of the Canadian, international and student communities.
While Festival organizers are disappointed that the films won’t be shown on the big screen, showcasing them online will be a positive alternative — bringing the work to new audiences and bringing the animation community together virtually.
This year’s virtual OIAF and TAC will be held September 23 to October 4 (www.animationfestival.ca).
“The pandemic certainly hasn’t slowed animators down,” said OIAF Artistic Director Chris Robinson. “This year’s crop of films are as solid, inspired, bizarre and diverse as any other. There’s sexual silliness (Peter Millard’s Cumcumcumcumcum Everybody and Ivan Li’s sure to be heatedly discussed short, Fruit), indie rock icons (new music videos for Sparks and The Breeders), boozy preachers (I, Barnabé), love affairs with a convict (Shoko Hara’s stop-motion documentary, Just a Guy), and some rather timely films that deal with those pandemic words we all now know so well: face touching (Leah Shore’s Don’t Touch Your Face), masks (Patrick Smith’s Beyond Noh), elderly (mis)care (Kaspar Jancis’ funny and poignant Kosmonaut) and isolation (the playful Living in a Box by Oscar nominee Theodore Ushev).”
It is a stellar year for the National Film Board of Canada, with five films in the Official Competition and two in the Canadian Panorama. The NFB selections range from the work of award-winning doc director Robin McKenna’s Thanadoula to the work of Atikamekw multi-disciplinary artist Meky Ottawa (The Fake Calendar) who is a graduate of the NFB’s Hothouse program.
The Feature Film Competition offers up a chance to see films that are truly out of the ordinary. Three among the six highly diverse and unusual films are Mosley, a family film with lots of appeal for everyone. This 3D animated labor of love comes from New Zealand director Kirby Atkins. Kill It and Leave This Town is animator Mariusz Wilczynski’s first feature, a personal film that looks back at Poland in the 1970s. The film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. There’s also the zen-inspired minimalist hilarity of the South African feature Bru & Boegie: The Movie.
The Competition also features an array of independent filmmakers, including a trio of former OIAF Grand Prize winners Sarina Nihei (Polka-Dot Boy), Andreas Hykade (Altotting) and Hisko Hulsing (Amazon Prime series Undone).
Select category selections below. Visit the OIAF website for a complete list.
Feature Film:
Bru & Boegie: The Movie by Mike Scott (South Africa)
Circumstantial Pleasure by Lewis Klahr (U.S.)
Kill It and Leave This Town by Mariusz Wilczynski (Poland)
Mosley by Kirby Atkins (New Zealand)
My Favorite War by Ilze Brukovska Jacobsen (Latvia / Norway)
The Nose or The Conspiracy of Mavericks by Andrey Khrzhanovsky (Russia)
Narrative Shorts:
10,000 Ugly Inkblots by Dmitry Geller (Russia / China)
4 North A by Howie Shia & Jordan Canning (Canada)
Alien Felines from Beyond the Galaxy by Ugo Vittu & Peter the Moon (France)
Altotting by Andreas Hykade (Germany / Canada / Portugal)
Kosmonaut by Kaspar Jancis (Estonia)
Fruit by Ivan Li (Canada)
Happiness by Andrey Zhidkov (Russia)
Hide by Daniel Gray (France / Canada / Hungary)
Homeless Home by Alberto Vazquez (France / Spain)
Human Nature by Sverre Fredriksen (Netherlands)
I, Barnabé by Jean-François Lévesque (Canada)
In the Shadow of the Pines by Anne Koizumi (Canada)
Just a Guy by Shoko Hara (Germany)
KKUM by Kang-min Kim (S. Korea / U.S.)
Lizard Ladder by Ted Wiggin (U.S.)
Mother Didn’t Know by Anita Killi (Norway)
My Exercise by Atsushi Wada (Japan)
Polka-Dot Boy by Sarina Nihei (France)
Sogni al campo by Magda Guidi & Mara Cerri (France)
Something to Remember by Niki Lindroth von Bahr (Sweden)
Thanadoula by Robin McKenna (CAnada)
Washing Machine by Alexandra Májová (Czech Rep.)
Non-Narrative Shorts:
Anonymous by Steven Subotnick (U.S.)
Beyond Noh by Patrick Smith (U.S. / Japan)
cumcumcumcumcum everybody by Peter Millard (U.K.)
Dune by Gabor Ulrich (Hungary)
Flamingo by Kawo Sushijojo (Taiwan / Macau)
Ghosts by Jee-youn Park (S. Korea)
Hierarchy Glitch by Vessela Dantcheva (Bulgaria / Austria)
Living in a Box by Theodore Ushev (Canada)
Median Life and/or Death by Petteri Cederberg (Finlan)
Opera by Erick Oh (S. Korea / U.S.)
Perennial Stream by Sonnye Lim (U.S.)
The Sea Is Too Much to Drink by Charlotte Arene (France)
Urban Sphinx by Maria Lorenzo (Spain)
Student Films:
2.3 x 2.6 x 3.2 by Jiaqi Wang (U.K.)
A Girl Who’s Afraid of Touching People by Liang Hsin Huang (U.K. / Taiwan)
Bye Little Block! by József Fülöp & Éva Darabos (Hungary)
Cockpera by Kata Gugi (Croatia)
Doghead by Momo Takenoshita (Japan)
Endless Forms Most Beautiful by Meredith Binnette (U.S.)
Hanging by Mathieu Georis (Belgium)
Naked by Kiril Khachaturov (Russia)
Papa Sun by Noah Gallagher (, U.S.)
Room with a Sea View by Leonid Shmelkov (Estonia)
SH_T Happens by David Stumpf & Michaela Mihalyi (Czech Rep. / Slovakia / France)
The Wellspring and the Tower by Melinda Kádár (Hungary)
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