La Escala

Normality is a human state of good intentions, empathy, caring and wanting to do the best for those we love and the world at large.

Michael Gondry's examination of childhood love is replete with his trademark surreality. One evening at the turn of the century, Stephane discusses with his brother the end of the millenium, but also girls, particularly Aurelie, a classmate with whom he is secretly in love. The following day, Aurelie has a letter to give to him....

Laid-off old mannequins spend their cracked and broken lives in an old, abandoned warehouse. New mannequins are brought to the warehouse. They are old as well, but from a younger generation. The two groups must live together, but it's not easy at all.

A papercut stopmotion animation in which human Travelers from 2053 travel 30 years into the past to warn "foundlings" of the future that awaits them. The story follows Jonah and his Traveler, learning about the possible chaotic future that could happen if such measures are not applied.

In this Lego stop-motion animated short brickfilm, an astronaut mysteriously trapped in space recounts how things could have been different

As a lunar eclipse commences, a frantic moon becomes increasingly twitchy as it attempts to hold back the darkness.

An "electronic puppet" version of the Humperdinck opera, adapted for children and using spoken dialogue as well as Humperdinck's music.

Three young children accidentally release a horde of nasty, pint-sized demons from a hole in a suburban backyard. What follows is a classic battle between good and evil as the three kids struggle to overcome a nightmarish hell that is literally taking over the Earth.

A greedy King Midas is visited one day by a mysterious visitor who grants him the ability to turn all things he touches to gold. He learns his lesson when the food he tries to eat and his own daughter are turned to gold as well. The visitor reappears and offers him the opportunity to return to his old self, which he gladly does. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2004.

An experimental docu-fiction short from hours of collected material shot by the director. Different scenes, from drunk parties with friends to shots of the Dutch landscape during a train ride, are cut together to see if a narrative story can be constructed from nothing but randomly shot footage.

In a city inhabited by drawn beings, an indigenous boy witnesses a holographic appearance. It is the arrival of an entity of unknown materiality. With a mysterious presence and exotic allegories, it starts to enchant the residents, awakening their most insane senses.

Amidst a period of unprecedented world events, an eighteen-year-old girl’s life is placed on hold. Isolated in her bedroom, she falls under the spell of the mysterious vlogger Patricia Coma. As time carries on, the lines between her dreams, fears, hopes, and reality begin to blur into one another.

BARE BONES is an experimental short film written, directed and scored by DEBBY FRIDAY. Conceived during the Covid-19 lockdown and shot in Vancouver, BC on 16mm, the film tells the story of a young woman who swallows a bee and begins to undergo a hallucinatory and transformative experience. Abstract visual sequences depict time and space fracturing around her as she succumbs to wave after wave of pure feeling.

Lacking a formal narrative, Warhol's mammoth film follows various residents of the Chelsea Hotel in 1966 New York City. The film was intended to be screened via dual projector set-up.

Indo...

For a young boy, ordinary facts and things of daily life seem to have great importance.

Tired of scaring humans every October 31 with the same old bag of tricks, Jack Skellington, the spindly king of Halloween Town, kidnaps Santa Claus and plans to deliver shrunken heads and other ghoulish gifts to children on Christmas morning. But as Christmas approaches, Jack's rag-doll girlfriend, Sally, tries to foil his misguided plans.

At the end of the eighth day the Creator has taken refuge in a dark dungeon . Obsessed with transcending he manipulates life to the extreme and tries to engender the perfect being that will immortalize him

Three kids are trying to stand strong. In a world where you don’t know for what you want to stay strong. Full of sexuality and the need to define their identity. “We are the children with no obligations, the most possibilities, with the most liberated freedom. We are children who build words. Children who give birth to children. We are children of our time, free from guilt.”

A story of diaspora. The film criticises the myth of Swiss neutrality, which violently masks structural, systemic, and social passivity.