Films to look out for at BISFF 2020 (Animation Competition Section)
Souhardya Pramanik, Anshul Gupta, Saugata Bhattacharya
Bengaluru International Short Film Festival 2020 Animation Competition segment has 17 entries this time, spanning around continents and genres as diverse as Sci-fi, Comedy, Horror, Fantasy, Adventure, Drama, even touching social issues such as the stories of the LGBTQ, Environment, etc. Here are the top 5 ( in order ) animated shorts of BISFF ’20 listed below and why you should watch them :
1) Pace (2019)
Director : Kai Stanicke
Country : Germany
A man always tries to keep pace with time to control the momentum of life until he’s overtaken by time itself. The Kai Stanicke directorial which is being screened as a part of the Bengaluru International Short Film Festival is a tale about time and its exorcism in the field competition. Competition has always been an unabated part of life. Sometimes it’s healthy but most of the times, it’s detrimental.
Though competition has always been accused of tormenting, the real tormentor is time. And this German film has perfectly explored the modern relationship of human race with time by placing the central character on the heart of a clock whose hand walks without hindrance and overtakes him. The dexterity of the director along with the help of a brilliant and necessary concept has thrown a few questions to the audience for introspection.
The writer hasn’t penned down even a single dialogue but has articulated the agony of reality through situations which help to preserve the viewers’ patience. How much money must a man gorge before his appetite calms down? It captures how the meaningless mobility of life takes away simple meaningful things.
The 2D animated film uses the tick-tock sound of a clock to focus on the constant feeling of not having enough of time in this transient show called life. Is life a show? Then who’s the judge?Time?
Pace asks us to value life and moments more than time.
2) Sigh (2019)
Director : Vlad Bolgarin
Country : Republic of Moldova
When the dawn is darker than the night, when films have to be celebrated on mobile/laptop screens, the only thing that can enlighten the new avenues of life, is hope. And Vald Bolgarin’s SIGH tells the story of colours amidst the paleness of pandemic.
The film begins with a grey man sighing on every situation. His city is even grey covered by smog, without any vestige of colour. Animated films often take us to a world of utopia or a world unknown, unimagined. But SIGH takes us to a world which is as unknown to us as a white canvas to a painter. He sighs until he dries out to become skin and bones. And then the raindrops of hope in the form of a balloon gas suffuses him with the much awaited colour. The beautifully constructed screenplay doesn’t even need a single dialogue to infuse poignancy. The situations, the moments create magic from the verses of reality.
Cinema always creates a different world where we pay a whimsical visit to meet the characters but when it creates a mirror, it reflects reality. It reflects ourselves. SIGH has just done so. It has taken one of us as its protagonist and told our stories of despair, of heartbreaks, of darkness. But even in the darkest corners of the soul, there is light and colour which revivifies the meaning of living . We just need to trigger that colour to pour it into someone else’s canvas.
3) Wade (2019)
Director : Kalp Sanghvi, Upamanyu Bhattacharya
Country : India
Written and directed by Kalp Sanghvi and Upamanyu Bhattacharya, Wade paints a terrifying near-dystopian picture of Kolkata having fallen prey to climate change in a not so distant future. The film opens with a ‘bird’s-eye view’ shot of the lush greenery of the Sundarbans in 2019 juxtaposed with the shots of the Sundarbans and Kolkata almost swallowed and submerged by the rising sea-level ‘Today’. A rather obvious yet clever montage of scenes follows which makes it clear that we ourselves have sown the seeds for this misfortune over the years, knowingly or unknowingly.
A writing on the wall saying ‘SAVE KOLKATA FROM CLIMATE CHANGE REFUGEES’ suggests a significant influx of migrants from the lower-lying regions of the Sundarbans to Kolkata. One such family of climate change refugees is the centre of attention as they struggle to make ends meet in an unnervingly indifferent and apathetic city. Carefully modeled on the neighbouring areas of an otherwise overcrowded Park Street, the streets are empty and devoid of anything you come to associate with the place. Bolstered by an abrupt, shocking turn of events, the film gathers its momentum as an ambush of Royal Bengal Tigers arrives on the streets of Kolkata from the Sundarbans. The central family of refugees and the tigers face off in a duel-like situation and from there, Wade becomes an universal story of survival as you root for both the humans and the tigers.
The film has no dialogues but the ‘roaring’ sound design and the bright, yet bleak visuals speak volumes and keep you engaged throughout 11 minutes. Essentially a story of survival, Wade is a warning to never take Nature for granted.
4) Story of a Beginning (2020)
Director : Balaram J
Country : India
Language : Malayalam
Malayalam short ‘Oru Thudakkathinte Kadha’ or ‘Story of the Beginning’ is about the curiosity of the three kids who want to satisfy their curiosity by knowing, “Where does the stream exactly come from”? The film is about their journey as they set out to find its origin, with the difference in opinions and if that thirst is really quenched or not?
Aisha believes that there’s endless rain, Ambadi believes it’s the sea. There innocent squabble and one-upmanship between the two, leads them to follow the stream, to find where it has originated. And, in the middle of it we have our protagonist, who is trapped in this bickering of those two.
Produced by Lijo Jose Pellissery, and directed by Balaram J., who also served as the animation director for Pellissery’s upcoming ‘Churuli’, the 12-minute film’s strength lies in its innocence and importance of friendship. But, it also is a satire on how we as a nation still stuck in merry-go-round of beliefs, which don’t hold relevance in the 21st century.
How the curiosity and beliefs get intertwined and end up in the bitter and hopeful realization, sums up ‘Story of the beginning’. Balaram’s own hand-drawn animation is aided by Sound designer Renganaath Ravee and music composer Sreerag Saji’s beautiful touch to the flowing streams, the outpour of rains, and the sound of the insects. Every little detailing is key here.
In the end, all this is seen through the inquisitive eyes of the kids, which really makes this a tender likeable watch.
5) Avarya (2019)
Director : Gökalp Gönen
Country : Turkey
Language : Turkish
Avarya, the adventurous 20-minute sci-fi short has a rather interesting premise. Set in a post-apocalyptic future when Earth is no more habitable, a human embarks on a spaceship with a robot overseer to look for a habitable planet. Well, it isn’t anything like Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar beyond that even if the premise sounds similar. Even though the ship, including its interiors is an exact replica of his erstwhile house on Earth, the man feels lonely and suffocated as the ship keeps continuing on its search even after a long time has passed. Uninterested to continue his expedition any further, the man thinks of returning back to Earth and live there miserably instead of wasting another moment in the dull, boring nothingness of his room.
Opening with the oft-referenced Issac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, Gökalp Gönen cleverly introduces the audience to the mechanised servitude of the robot to the man without having to explain any further. The robot, unfeeling and determined in his pursuit, stays firm in his resolve to protect the man by any means necessary even when he succumbs to violence.
Spun on a web of mystery, adventure and sci-fi, Avarya is a dark, delightful mixture of dazzling animation and crisp writing with a mind-bending twist in the end.
Special Mention : Divakar SK’s ambitious Tamil short, ‘The Fox of the Palmgroves’ and Hsiao-Shan Huang’s adventurous Taiwanese short ‘Grand Adventure Railroad’.
BISFF 2020 (13th — 16th August 2020) is playing at
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