REST

This documentary is a portrait of the animator of Le Paysagiste, from his childhood in Eastern Quebec to his career at the NFB. Trained at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), Drouin became in some ways the heir to Alexandre Alexeïeff when he began working with the Alexeïeff-Parker pinhole screen in 1974. Recounting his relationship with the filmmaker and inventor, coming back with lucidity and precision on the whole of his own filmography, Jacques Drouin delivers here a precious testimony on creation. Enriched with numerous excerpts and unpublished images from the filmmaker's personal archives, Jacques Drouin en relief is both the adventure of a lifetime and a valuable lesson in cinema.

In this non-narrative animated film inspired by composer François Couperin's harpsichord composition "Barricades mystérieuses," Jacques Drouin explores a whole new way of using the pinscreen to create animated images. He pivots the screen and uses low-angled light to capture images in high relief. The result is like a sculpture whose expertly modelled forms are revealed through film. A film without words.

An animated film based on one of the renku (collaborative linked poems) in the 1684 collection of the same name by the 17th-century Japanese poet Bashō. The creation of the film followed the traditional collaborative nature of the source material – the visuals for each of the 36 stanzas were independently created by 35 different animators. As well as many Japanese animators, Kawamoto assembled leading names in animation from across the world. Each animator was asked to contribute at least 30 seconds to illustrate their stanza, and most of the sequences are under a minute (Yuriy Norshteyn's, though, is nearly two minutes long).

The story of a young boy and his father, both of whom are enlisted to fight in the war. The boy's pride soon turns to fear as the bullets whistle overhead. His father takes his place and is immediately shot and killed. Horrified, the boy understands that war is not a game.

Animated short film made in three parts on the pin screen by Alexeieff-Parker. With these three exercises, director Jacques Drouin experiments with the play of light and shadow alone. Original, this experience presents us with a reality that is not truncated although it may appear as follows: the faculty of wonder will be able to create the necessary link between everyday life and the way it was rendered.

The forest can be full of scary creatures, Eliot’s parents caution, but the mystery might be too tempting for a kid who doesn’t want to go to bed.

This short animated film follows Antoine, a young boy fascinated by his mysterious neighbour, a man rumoured to have once been a big game hunter. Antoine is eager to learn about hunting, but the lesson he learns from the wise older man is not at all what he had expected: Antoine is left with a profound reverence for life.

In this short, an artist creates a painting of the landscape he sees, then finds he can literally climb into the picture to see the fantastic world inside.

Utilising the Alexeïeff-Parker pinscreen technique, this visually poetic non-narrative film revisits Diego Vélasquez’s 1652 portrait of Queen Mariana of Austria with genuine feeling.

This abstract yet compelling philosophical tale uses the Alexeïeff-Parker pinscreen as a metaphor for the particles that make up the universe. Through 4 tableaux that explore her character’s thoughts, filmmaker Michèle Lemieux takes a look at the profound reflections of this everyman, whose questions are part of humanity’s eternal quest for meaning.

When a man becomes blind, his life is all turned around. He can only use his touch to get around in his house. The objects become enemies. But an angel is looking over him.

An allegorical film about the human condition with images that are similar to the art of Kandinsky or Klee and, closely combining surrealism and abstraction, prefigure a world that is becoming decline.

Short animated version of the Chinese folktale, Nüwa Mends the Heavens

A shy woman tries to break outside her comfort zone.

Two parallel but different life paths are shown in this creative animated short that examines the dualities of identity, chance, fate and existence.

Der Stadtfuchs

Hairy loves to toast, but making toast isn't without danger.

The dwarves are traveling to the big feast for the tournament performance. But nothing goes as planned: they loose their cave troll, meet a dragon, find magic weapons, and fall in the middle of a fight at the royal castle of the Knight of the Lion...

This short experimental film is a celebration of the art and joy of mark making and the animated line. A line on a page creating a line on a page.

Hulking monster men beat the crap out of each other