Once again French animators invite us to spend a magical night with their cartoon creations. The “French Animation Night's” program is made of the best new works presented at the International Animation Festival in Annecy. The so-called “Animation Cannes” annually gathers the world’s best professional as well as beginner animators and selects the most innovative and original cartoons.
This year the “Night” will be held in 14 cities of Ukraine, including Lviv, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhya, Odesa, Kharkiv, Rivne, Sevastopol, Simferopol, Zhytomyr, Cherkasy, Chernivtsi, and, of course, Kyiv. The 40 cartoons (from three to 15 minutes long) will be divided into five sections: “Toys,” “Ah! Love,” “Learning from Mistakes,” “Wolves and Dogs” and “We aren’t Machines.” The animation night will last for six hours (including breaks), so be prepared to stay awake.
The animations from “Toys” series are focused on heroes and magical characters. In “Versus,” two Samurai clans living on two islands engage in a fight; “Vampz” is a story about a vampire and his younger sister and “La Saint Festin” (Saint Feast) is about a cannibal who loses his teeth. “Ah! Love” features a number of extraordinary love stories. “La Chute de L’Ange” (The Falling of an Angel) tells of an angel who breaks his wing, falls down and finds himself among earthlings; “En Tus Brazos” (In Your Hands) is a story of a husband and a wife – famous tango dancers while “Signes de Vie” (Signs of Life) is about a woman who lost her loved one and wishes to die, but the spirit of her man saves her.
Cartoons included in “Learning from Mistakes” raise all kinds of philosophical, environmental and social issues. For instance in “Beton” (Concrete), the blind and mute warriors are guarding a giant concrete wall, which prevents dissident thoughts. “Tadeus” tells of a Czech boy – a new fourth grade student at a French school. “La Marche de Sans Nom” (March of the Nameless) shows a picture of the world in the state of war, and a fate of a solider in the heart of a battle.
The part about “Wolves and Dogs” quite literally features cartoons about these animals. “Three Little Pigs” is a new interpretation of the famous fairy tale; “AP 2000” tells about parasites, which built a “civilization” on a dog’s back, but the anti-flea substance “AP 2000” is about to ruin it all. In “Ponpon,” a little dog crossing the road realizes it’s about to be hit by a truck, and its life flashes before its eyes.
“We aren’t Machines” is all about machines, robots and people living their lives as pieces of machinery in a system. “El Desafio De La Muerte” (Challenging Death) tells about an Indian fakir who performs an ultimate trick: he climbs into a blender. In “Bob,” a giant factory creates automatic workers which are managed by a machine, while two little characters of “Dynamo” work hard to keep the Earth turning around.
Kyiv (19 Chervonoarmiyska, 234-3380, www.kievkino.com.ua). June 19-20 at 11:30 p.m. Tickets Hr 70. In French with subtitles.
