Nine to Fire

Succumbing to the stresses of her personal and professional lives, Sylvia, a Seattle morning show weather forecaster, has a meltdown live on-air. Now, unemployed, lacking career prospects, and with a mess of a romantic life, she moves in with her little brother. She must learn how to cope with being 35-years-old and unfortunately famous for melting down on live television.

This joyful short animation features a dancing hen that transforms into an egg. The film was made without a camera by Norman McLaren, who drew directly onto 35 mm movie stock with ordinary pen and ink. Colour was added optically.

In an old library, two armies of chess pieces are about to start a war.

Regal is an eagle who is afraid to fly. A little bird offers to help him, but Regal does not believe he can. Will the eagle finally learn to fly?

Čardášová Julie

Short animation by Al Jarnow based on the work of British poet Edward Lear. Made at NYU.

A stream of consciousness experiment committed directly to celluloid, Jarnow pays homage to Stan Brakhage and Harry Smith. Abstract designs transform self portraiture, lettering tests and images traced from other films including a Charlie Chaplin short.

Jarnow's first work for Sesame Street and the Children's Television Workshop - yak is a goofy take on the letter "Y."

Tondo introduces the cosmic formalism that was the primary theme of Al Jarnow's independent films. An infinite gridscape alternates with vibrating etchings, spirograms and other surreal realities.

Intended to be an "animation machine," Four Quadrant Exercise finds Jarnow adapting a perspective system, enabling him to render complex motions almost automatically. Created prior to the streamlined ease of computer software, this short is a commitment to the joy of making marks on paper.

The primary motif in this silent picture is a grid that controls the shapes and motions of forms contained within the framework of a rotating cube. Constructed from interlocking cycles, the film explores branches and loops along paths laid down by geometric logic.

Transgender Blake and cisgender Cane hang out, play video games and grapple with their insecurities. This is their love story.

Mr. Snookie steals an umbrella and then, while trying to help a woman to cross a puddle, the Tramp appears and intervenes.

The Tramp interferes with the celebration of several kid auto races in Venice, California (Junior Vanderbilt Cup Race, January 10 and 11, 1914), standing himself in the way of the cameraman who is filming the event.

A tramp gets drunk in a hotel lobby and, upstairs, causes some misunderstandings between Mabel, two hotel guests across the hall from her room, and Mabel's visiting sweetheart.

Charlie and Dan have been best friends and business partners for thirty years; their Manhattan public relations firm is on the verge of a huge business deal with a Japanese company. With two weeks to sew up the contract, Dan gets a surprise: a woman he married on a drunken impulse nearly nine years before (annulled the next day) shows up to tell him he's the father of her twins, now seven, and she'll be in jail for 14 days for a political protest. Dan volunteers to keep the tykes, although he's uptight and clueless. With Charlie's help is there any way they can be dad and uncle, meet the kids' expectations, and still land the account?

The Stooges are key witnesses at a murder trial. Their friend Gail Tempest, who dances at the Black Bottom cafe where the Stooges are musicians, is accused of killing Kirk Robin.

While all the inhabitants of a small rural village are working hard to survive the harsh daily routine, the mayor and his wife are gorging themselves to death. Without generosity, they even refuse alms to a penniless old lady. Among the hard workers trying to subsist, a little girl works courageously to help her exhausted mother. One day, during her lunch break, she goes into the forest to fill her cup of water in a river. There, a poor old lady asks for alms from the young lady, having nothing but her little piece of bread, willingly offers it to her. It is then that the old lady, as a reward, enchants the cup of the little girl ...

The beautiful princess Odette is transformed into a swan by an evil sorcerer's spell. Held captive at an enchanted lake, she befriends Jean-Bob the frog, Speed the turtle and Puffin the bird. Despite their struggle to keep the princess safe, these good-natured creatures can do nothing about the sorcerer's spell, which can only be broken by a vow of everlasting love.

The path is known to all, but few follow it. Rising Hope – once the fastest horse in the race, tries to be one of the few.