Motion Graphics: Animated Film Series
in conjunction with the exhibition
Compulsive Narratives: Stories that MUST be Told
Chico y Rita
Thursday, January 30th, 2014, 4:45 pm, Room FA110
This film recounts the story of Chico, a young piano player, and Rita, a beautiful singer, who are united by music and romance, but their journey, as in the tradition of the bolero, brings heartache and torment.
Long before its famous military revolution, the Cuba of the late 40s had been moved and transformed by another compelling movement that should have also changed its destiny: Afro-Cuban jazz. Chico and Rita is an elegy to that possibility, and to all the glamour, sensuality, and superb musical sophistication it encompassed. Often described as a “nearly operatic tragedy,” the film portrays, though the trials and (mostly romantic) tribulations of its two charming and sultry protagonists, the difficult journeys that local talents faced in a country turned into an entertainment mecca by corrupt, North American, gangsters and corporations. The eternal matrix of love, jealousy, danger and success that results from such elements is softened by the fascinating music of the film. The Latin-inflected Dizzy Gillespie sound, the Bebop Valdés-Jazz rhythm and Idana Valdés voice (dubbing Rita’s) is simply intoxicating and has been able to submerge critics and spectators into a musical indulgence that many of us could not believe we knew so little about. The indie film has been internationally acclaimed, winning in 2012 an Oscar nomination for best animated feature.
Presented by Dr. Ana Laguna
Ghost World
Thursday, February 6th, 2014, 4:45 pm, Room FA110
Following his documentary Crumb, filmmaker Terry Zwigoff meticulously recreates the world that comics artist/writer Daniel Clowes has obsessively rendered with very purposefully placed clean line in his graphic novel. The result is the same nebulous, unsure landscape that is paradoxically as dense as it is empty.
Presented by Dr. Robert Emmons
Arrugas
Thursday, February 13th, 2014, 4:45 pm, Room FA110
This film relates a story of friendship, resistance and life unfolding in the unexpected setting of an elderly care facility.
Presented by Dr. Alejandra Jasowicz
Crumb
Thursday, February 27th, 2014, 4:45PM Room FA 110
Filmmaker Terry Zwigoff begins with what seems to be a standard biographical documentary of famed underground comics artist R. Crumb. Just as subversive as Crumbs comics, the narrative quickly runs always from Zwigoff and spirals into the story of the compulsive world of the Crumb family. Zwigoff frantically chases the story with the same obsessive lens that Crumb applies to his comics.
Presented by Dr. Robert Emmons
Une vie de chat (A Cat in Paris)
Thursday, March 6th, 2014, 4:45 pm, Room FA110
Nominated for a Best Animated Film Oscar in 2012, A Cat in Paris by Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli is a suspense-thriller for young audiences that follows Dino—loving pet by day and a cat burglar by night—as he helps track down a villain plotting to steal the invaluable Colossus of Nairobi. This crime fiction will also appeal to grown-ups in its masterful combination of references from popular culture and fine art. Whether you love classic flicks for children, like Annie (1982), Ghostbusters (1984) and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1996), or early 20th century paintings by Henri Matisse, Fernand Léger, Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani, you’re sure to find similarities with this entirely hand-drawn film that has delighted audiences around the world.
Presented by Dr. Cyril Reade
Couleur de peau miel
Thursday, March 13th, 2014, 4:45 pm, Room FA110
This film showcases how the hybrid use of animation and live-action allows for a poignant interrogation of the vagaries and mysteries of identity and nationality.
Presented by Dr. Alisa Belanger
L’lllusioniste (The Illusionist)
Thursday, March 27th, 2014, 4:45 pm, Room FA110
Based on a scenario by Jacques Tati, The illusionist speaks tenderly and eloquently about how simple souls struggle to exist in a modern mechanized world, and how they may still manage to do so.
Presented by Dr. Alisa Belanger
30 anos de obscuridad (30 Years of Darkness)
Thursday, April 3rd, 2014, 4:45 pm, Room FA110
This animated film involving history, politics, war, and family, relates the store of a man who was hidden in a hold in his house for 30 years during Spain’s Civil War.
Presented by Dr. Prospero Garcia