The Candlemaker

Development in long-range travel and the growing importance of the Arctic and Antarctic regions make it necessary to understand how maps may be misleading. Experiments with a grapefruit illustrate the difficulty of presenting a true picture of the world on a flat surface and it is concluded that the globe is the most accurate way of representing the earth.

"We Go Past Future" is an experimental paper collage film by Anna Malina. The film reimagines a series of Soviet films from 1919 to 1953, blending them into a unique visual narrative.

When Bill Babbitt realizes his brother Manny has committed a crime he agonizes over his decision to call the police.

Albert thinks he is old enough to get a dog, as he's now seven. He tries to convince dad that he's not too young, even if he has an imaginary best friend to help him solve his problems. He gets new hope, when he gets to know a magician. But is magic what's needed to get father's understanding and a dog?

The traditional crafts of crochet and knitting have become one of the hottest movements in modern art. We follow a few International artists and knitters as they bring yarn to the streets and into our lives in new ways. Starting in Iceland, this quirky and thought-provoking film takes us on a colourful and global journey as we discover how yarn connects us all.

A nightingale bird discovers a true lover when she witnesses a young university student talk with great passion about his beloved. The Nightingale goes on a quest to find the red rose the Student needs win his lovers heart, but this comes at a chilling price. Based on the classic fairytale by Oscar Wilde.

A film about (local) patriotism, tourism and emigration. A girl lives in a gray, isolated country, enclosed by a huge wall. She has never travelled anywhere, but all her life she has dreamt of leaving forever for a perfect world called “Abroad”.

A stop motion film about an oddball felted character who slips through floors into the past and the deepest parts of his psyche in his pursuit of self-understanding.

An animated adaptation of Franz Kafka’s acclaimed novella, “The Metamorphosis,” made from carving images into sand with glass.

Based on the book by Posy Simmonds. Mischievous kitten Fred grows up to be feline singing superstar, but a case of cat flu threatens to cut short his musical career.

This short probes the taboos around a very particular second-hand trauma, leading us to a more universal understanding of human experience.

Shouya Ishida starts bullying the new girl in class, Shouko Nishimiya, because she is deaf. But as the teasing continues, the rest of the class starts to turn on Shouya for his lack of compassion. When they leave elementary school, Shouko and Shouya do not speak to each other again... until an older, wiser Shouya, tormented by his past behaviour, decides he must see Shouko once more. He wants to atone for his sins, but is it already too late...?

A precocious young girl makes a new friend when a tiny boy pilot drops out of the sky on a broken flying machine. Now she must race against time to return him home, before her new friend becomes stranded on Earth forever.

Sofía, a little girl of seven, remembers the day she fractured her arm while being chased through the forest; a story full of fantasy that hides a heart rending moment in Sofía's life.

To the toccata portion of Bach's "Toccata and fugue in D minor," we watch a play of sorts. Blue smoke forms a background; a grid of black lines is the foreground. Behind the lines, a triangle appears, then patterns of multiple triangles. Their movements reflect the music's rhythm. Behind the barrier of the black lines, the triangle moves, jumps, and takes on multiple shapes. In contrast with the blue and the black, the triangles are warm: orange, red, yellow. The black lines bend, swirl into a vortex, then disappear. The triangle pulsates and a set of many of them rises.

Parabola is a celebration of film’s ability to create new ways of seeing the forms around us. Creating juxtapositions between light/shadow, stasis/motion, and form/music, this black-and-white short invites us to see the parabolic curve, or “nature’s poetry,” as both invigorating and beguiling.

Spectacle is proud to present HEAD SPACE, a showcase of animated works exploring dimensions both interior and outlying. Featuring an extremely talented and creative group working in a diverse array of styles, the shorts wander through strange and sometimes sketchy landscapes, including alternate-universe appliance stores, the ramblings of Charles Manson, environmental catastrophes in the Dutch style of painting, and a houseplant’s musings. Some, like Sally Cruikshank’s Make Me Psychic, are established classics; others feature newer animators working in looping GIF format, presented away from the small screen’s momentary pleasures to fully appreciate the art that it is. Occasionally gross, often beautiful, and always interesting, HEAD SPACE is a sampler of the thoughts happening inside and out of each frame.

Cúilín Dualach lives in a small town in the west of Ireland. He is the apple of his mother’s eye, yet his father shows him little affection. Everywhere he goes, people stare at him. Cúilín strives to fit in as best he can but that can be a difficult thing to do when your head is on backwards!

Refashioning the original intention of footage lifted from an online animated news outlet, The Falling Sky is a cautionary tale about the inexplicable sea and the tumultuous sky—a poetic tour through the dense landscape of recent news in a recap of human foibles, follies and crises that are increasingly out of alignment with the forces of nature.

The true story of John Romulus Brinkley, a small-town Kansas doctor who discovers in 1917 that he can cure impotence by transplanting goat testicles into men. And that’s just the tipping point in this stranger-than-fiction tale. With the balls of a P.T. Barnum, the gonads of goats, and the wishful dreams of flaccid men, Brinkley amassed a fortune, was almost elected Governor of Kansas, invented junk mail and the infomercial, and built the world’s most powerful radio station. By the time all of the twists and turns of Brinkley’s story are revealed, Nuts! certainly earns its title.