Close-Up on Planets

On a future Earth, war between the Kingdom of Honneamise and its rival, The Republic, is inevitable. As evolving technology creates new ways to wage war, a small group seeks to propel mankind into space in their world’s first spaceflight program. For astronaut candidate Shirotsugh Lhadatt, it’s a personal odyssey as he grows from an aimless young man into a leader willing to put everything on the line in order to move the human race forward and away from the brink of Armageddon.

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

Thirty-five-year-old Stojan lives in a big city and has various jobs. He takes refuge from everyday life in an uncommon place.

During the 1980s, claims of satanic ritual abuse ran rife throughout the western world, uncovered by hypnotic therapists and perpetuated throughout the media, including high-rating television talk shows. In Demonic, filmmaker Pia Borg delves into this bizarre chapter of history, examining the elusive line between fact, fiction and the persuasive power of the media.

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.

Wartime propaganda short in which a professor enlists the help of a dustman to explain the importance of saving paper, bones and metal to help the war effort.

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.

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 ...

Ocean Oasis is a fascinating journey into the bountiful seas and pristine deserts of two remarkably different, but inextricably linked worlds — Mexico's Sea of Cortés and the Baja California desert.

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.

Erika Blanc self-reflectively narrates her descent into Italian genre cinema while she hyperbolically playacts in the woods.

On October 25, 1946... in a small crowded room at Cambridge University, two of the world’s greatest twentieth-century philosophers, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper, came face-to-face for the first and only time. A third man, Lord Bertrand Russell was also present, acting as umpire of the event. The meeting - which lasted only 10 minutes - did not go well. To this day, no one can agree precisely what took place in those fiery minutes. Almost immediately, rumours started to spread around the world that the two philosophers, Wittgenstein and Popper, had come to blows armed with red-hot fire pokers!

The International Ox Pull, highlight of the Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, annual fair, is a holdover from the pioneer past when oxen cleared the land and tilled the soil. These beasts of burden have lost none of their pulling power, as demonstrated when they drag tons of weight loaded on sleds (the winner pulls up to 6 tons!). Competing teams come from various parts of the Maritimes and the Northeastern United States.