Prickly Jam
Prickly Jam
Rain
Rain
Violent Equation
Violent Equation

Screened as part of NZIFF 2020

Animation NOW! 2020 

Curated

A celebratory showcase of some of the year’s best and brightest animated shorts. If you’re looking to sample the animation ecosystem in all its multi-coloured, variously-shaped glory, there’s no better place to begin.

83 minutes

Welcome to Animation NOW!

Diversity was the guiding light in bringing together this single programme of animation from the 3,000+ submissions we received this year. Techniques range from paint-on-glass and hand-drawn, to the exquisite precision of 3D digital animation and the beautiful imperfections inherent in all stop motion work. Storylines, too, range eclectically from classic narrative right across the creative tundra to the kind of uncannily malleable chronicles animation often does so well.

Violent Equation brings a polished digital elegance to the surrealist labyrinth it navigates while the simple grace of Moth relies as much on its striking, painterly style as it does its humble inspiration.

The inspiration behind Girl in the Hallway is all too clear and as one of the most affecting films submitted this year it had to close the programme, simply because it was hard to imagine what could follow it. But opening Animation NOW! 2020 is the latest film by one of New Zealand’s most accomplished animators. James Cunningham’s Prickly Jam showcases both the extraordinary technical virtuosity and the wickedly off-beat humour for which he is internationally renowned. — Malcolm Turner

There Were Four of Us 2019

Director

USA In English
7 minutes

Four characters trapped in a room try to decipher the reason behind a death.

Trauma Chameleon 2019

Director

USA In English
3 minutes

An escaped laboratory rat navigates through a sea of punctuation.

Moth 2019

Director

3 minutes

Wandering through a range of primal emotions, this work was inspired by the simple act of a moth hitting the artist’s studio window

Holodomor. Cookie 2019

Director

UK In No Dialogue
6 minutes

A hungry child sacrifices the only thing she has in the world to save her starving mother.

Cante 2019

Director

Estonia In Spanish
5 minutes

The haunting strains of Cante Alentejano, a traditional choral music, lead a man through a revaluation of his everyday life.

Bubbles 2019

Ireland In English
3 minutes

“What a lie it is to say that love conquers all. I would have danced on fire for you. But…”

Kids 2019

Director

9 minutes

How do we define ourselves when we are all equal. An intense exploration of group dynamics.

Live a Little 2018

Director

UK In English
4 minutes

A visual poem about struggling to fit into a patriarchal society’s views on how a young woman should behave.

2.3 x 2.6 x 3.2 2019

Director

UK In Mandarin
4 minutes

A woman confronts her mortality and wonders why it came to this.

Violent Equation 2019

Director

5 minutes

Ignorance creates fear, and envy brings violence. An astonishing proto-visual tour de force of mad collective imagination.

Under the Canopy 2019

Director

7 minutes

Birds of paradise, displaying beautiful plumage, sing and dance in the tropical forests.

Girl in the Hallway 2019

Director

Canada In English
10 minutes

Why does Little Red Riding Hood give Jamie nightmares? It’s been 15 years, and the girl in the hallway still haunts him.