Kaboom Bonkers Stop-Motion @ StopTrik 2023
Thursday, 28. 9. 2023 at 20.30 / Vetrinj mansion, courtyard
Curated by Maarten van Gageldonk
Presented by Kaboom Animation Festival, Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
At Kaboom Animation Festival our mantra is: the crazier, the better. We’ve been doing late night programming since, well, ever! And nothing makes us happier than showing weird, unnerving, madder-than-mad stop-motion films. This year, StopTrik asked us to put together a program with some of our favorites and, boy, were we happy to oblige.
Stop-motion films have a unique ability to stir an uncanny feeling in their audience. From Ray Harryhausen’s dinosaurs to modern classics like The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Coraline (2009), the creepiness of seeing puppets come to life feeds off our deepest childhood fears. Yet, at the same time stop-motion returns us to our childhood fantasies: what if our dolls could come alive like we pretended while playing with them.
Here is a smorgasbord of films that will titillate the senses and disturb the mind: from fun with ice cream to love between zombie pets, from a hill with its own personality to a primal scream class gone horribly wrong.
Don’t tell us we didn’t warn you!
Trigger warnings: violence, death, bodily waste (urine, faeces, ejaculate), blood, implied cannibalism, sexual violence, self-harm, insects, vomit, suicide
1.
Hi Stranger!
Kristin Lepore
2016, USA, 3'
I made this film especially for you. I needed to check in with you. I needed to tell you how I feel.
Written, Directed, and Animated by Kirsten Lepore // Voice by Garrett Davis // Final Sound Mix by David Kamp // Thanks to: Dan Kwan, Kent Osborne, Late Night Work Club
Kirsten Lepore is an LA-based director and animator, and alumna of CalArts. She was the Animation Director on the A24 feature, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, which was nominated for an Oscar, Golden Globe, and won 3 Annie Awards, a Critics Choice Award, National Board of Review and New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Animated Picture. She recently wrote and directed the Marvel Studios "I Am Groot" series streaming on Disney+. Previously, Kirsten's viral short “Hi Stranger” garnered upwards of 200 million views online, and her stop-motion episode of Adventure Time won a 2016 Emmy & Annie award. She has worked with clients such as Google, MTV, Mini Cooper, Silk, Skippy, Nestle, and many more.
2.
Cream
Lena Ólafsdóttir (The Animation Workshop)
2016, Denmark, 5'
In a doctor’s cozy waiting room, the cold and ugly sides of human behaviour are revealed while some of the patients enjoy an ice cream.
Written and directed: Lena Ólafsdóttir // Music composer/s: Sofie Johanne Birch, Alfred Johannes Bundgaard // Animator/s: Stina Willadsen, Jonas Scott Di Hu, Lena Ólafsdóttir, Marie Eriksen // Sound: Sofie Johanne Birch
Lena Ólafsdóttir (1983) is a 3d modeler and film maker from Kópavogur, Iceland. She graduated with a bachelor in Computer Graphic Arts in 2017 from The Animation Workshop in Viborg, Denmark. She was a director on her bachelor film which was a stop motion production. Her main focus is on 3d modelling and traditional sculpting. Her aim is to develop herself in more film making projects.
3.
Love Is Just a Death Away
Bára Anna Stejskalová (Bionaut Animation, FAMU)
2020, Czechia, 11'
For some, life starts after the death of someone else. Like for a little parasite, who walks with a rotting corpse of a dead dog around on an old landfill. Trapped in his unpalatable body he tries to find love and friendship.
Written and directed: Bára Anna Stejskalová // Producers: Jakub Košťál, Vratislav Šlajer // DOP: Václav Tlapák // Sound: Miroslav Chaloupka // Editing: Ilona Malá // Music: Daniel Patras, Miroslav Chaloupka // Dramaturgy: Petr Koubek // Set supervision: Ondřej Slavík // Vfx supervision: Patrik Michalů
Bára Anna Stejskalová is director, art director, animator, and script writer of animated films, with a specialization on stop-motion. Beginning her studies at University of Arts at Bournemouth, she transferred to Prague's FAMU. In 2018 she participated in Erasmus internship in the Production Design department at IADT in Dublin. Her bachelor's film The Fishermen (2017) was nominated for BAFTA Shortlist. She is a co-author of project HEARDT, which received Burning Man Honorarium Grant and was show-cased at the festival. Her graduation movie Love Is Just a Death Away (2020) is presently touring world-wide festivals. She is currently working at Art Director on VR project Darkening directed by Ondřej Moravec. In 2020 Patrik Michalů, Vojtěch Kiss, Jan Saska, Ondřej Slavík, Bára Anna Stejskalová and Patrik Velek founded studio Burning Frames.
4.
No, I Don’t Want to Dance!
Andrea Vinciguerra (Georgie Beattie, Andrea Vinciguerra)
2019, UK, Italy, 2'
A dark comedy stop motion short film to raise social awareness about how deadly dangerous dance can be.
Written and directed by: Andrea Vinciguerra // Producer: Georgie Beattie, Andrea Vinciguerra // Executive Producer: Sandrine Servent, Andrea Vinciguerra // Associate Producer: Kimberley Le Blanc // Animator: Tim Allen, Will Hodge // Puppet Maker: Adeena Grubb // Model Maker: Kat Simpson // Costume Maker: Isabelle Riley // Set Builder: Phil Shaw // Dop: Jamie Kennerley, Thomas Wootton, Will Hodge // Model Maker Assistant: Meg Dupont, Julia Lopez Martinez // Props Maker Assistant: Nada Moussa // VFX: Alberto Falcone, Mark Miko // Extra VFX: Ferenc Miko // Sound Design: Father // Music Composer: Pietro Ventimiglia // Grade: Joseph Bicknell at Company3 (NYC) // Storyboard: Victoria Budgett // Animatic Sound: Francesco Corsello // Equipment: Mark Swaffield // Special Thanks to: Paola Lizza, Claudio Giambrusso, Piotr Tomasikiewicz, Christian Schofield - Panalux, Gary Welch.
Andrea Vinciguerra is an Italian writer-director and creative based in London, working in animation, advertising and film. Punk musician and visuals maker since young age, Andrea has developed a great passion for creating fictional work, sometimes fun, sometimes a bit edgy, most of the time heavily stylized. Swinging between live action and animation, Andrea's work is characterized by playful energy and bold, colourful aesthetics peppered with humorous (and often dark) twists that come from recognisable motifs in fresh situations. Yes, behind him there is a frame with two nuns apparently in love.
5.
Farce / Farse
Robin Jensen (Mikrofilm)
2019, Norway, 11'
A man, a woman and a meat grinder. Love is messy.
A film by: Robin Jensen // Producers: Lise Fearnley and Tonje Skar Reiersen, Mikrofilm // Camera: Janne K Hansen // Editing: Robin Jensen and Anders Bergland // Music: Martin Horntveth // Sound design: Johannes Dekko // Voices: Henriette Steenstrup, John Brungot
Robin Jensen is an award winning director from Norway. He has written and directed a dozen short films and documentaries that have screened at festivals worldwide. His last film, The Shelter, was awarded “Best European Documentary for Children 2018” by (ECFA) European Children’s Film Association.
6.
Enough
Anna Mantzaris (Royal College of Art)
2017, UK, 2'
Moments of lost self-control.
Written and directed, editing: Anna Mantzaris // DOP: Donna Wade // Sound design: André Parklind // Music: Phil Brookes // Animation: Anna Mantzaris, Marcos Valin // Post-production: Hugo Vieites Caamano
Anna Mantzaris is a Swedish Director and Animator based in London. Worked in various projects both commercials and feature films, recently animated on Wes Anderssons ‘Isle of Dogs’. Her short film But Milk is Important, co directed with Eirik Gronmo Bjornsen, won over 20 international awards. And her first year film at the Royal College of Art ‘Enough’ is currently being screened at festivals around the world, and has so far recieved multiple awards. Her graduation film Good Intention is just finished. Anna is represented as a Director by Passion Pictures.
7.
My Favourite Hill!
Christopher Childs (UWE Bristol School of Animation)
2020, UK, 4'
A group of factory workers become obsessed with a hill. They let loose on the marshy earth, succumbing to their strange desires. The hill watches them closely, commenting on their activities like a deranged poet.
Chris Childs is an animation director and artist based in Bristol, UK. His short films draw from his home-educated childhood spent living on the edge of Dartmoor National Park in Devon. He is also influenced by traditions of absurdist comedy and experimental animation. His work has featured in events such as POFF Shorts and Kaboom Animation Festival. He has also screened at BAFTA-qualifying festivals like London Short Film Festival and Flatpack Festival.
8.
Lemoncholy
Maya Pirulli, Mariluz Rodriguez Jr
2019, USA, 5'
A couple finds a back-door solution to their intimacy problems.
9.
Manoman
Simon Cartwright (NFTS)
2015, UK, 11'
When Glen attends primal scream class, he releases something from deep within him that knows no limits.
Since he was just a boy Simon has been consumed by a burning passion. A singular dream which drove him every day to become better, to hone his art and strive towards his ultimate goal; to become the best slap bass player in Leeds. For 6 years he toiled, earning tendonitis in both wrists from furious slapping and popping of heavy steel bass strings, calluses so thick he no longer could feel anything and a stiff neck from grooving so hard. Then, one cold and stormy night while watching a funk band perform live he had an epiphany, a realisation so devastating he knew in that instance life would never be the same again.......nobody likes slap bass. Panicked and in a haze of regret at wasting the best years of his life, Simon buried his bass beneath the town's old oak tree, vowing never to pick it up again. He needed a new role in life, something so simple it would require no training or experience. Something even an idiot could do. Thankfully he had a back up plan. Having once seen an episode of The Clangers which was "alright" he decided to become an animation director. So he moved to London and did an MA at the National Film and Television School and became a director and storyboard artist. Now he makes films in a variety of mediums such as hand drawn, stop motion and cut out animation. More recently he's been mixing animation with live action puppetry to combine the worst of everything, bringing him once again to the undeniable truth that he's wasted his life. Simon's next move is to buy a metal detector.
Maarten van Gageldonk
is the Head of Program of Kaboom Animation Festival in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He is also a tutor in the MA Animation program at the Master Institute for Visual Cultures (MIVC) in Den Bosch. In 2020, he coedited the book Animation and Memory, published by Palgrave.