Romance

Deux étrangers, un homme et une femme, s'assoient côte à côte dans un avion. Après le décollage, quand surviennent les premières turbulences, l'esprit du voyageur bascule dans une autre réalité sous l'influence de l'inconnue. La logique des désirs s'impose et une grande saga amoureuse prend alors forme. Avec virtuosité, ce film d'animation de Georges Schwizgebel nous fait voyager d'un monde à l'autre au gré de la musique et du mouvement, abolissant les frontières entre les désirs et la réalité. Épousant les contours du deuxième mouvement de la sonate no19 de Rachmaninov, il nous amène, par ses éblouissantes circonvolutions, dans les dédales de la pensée du voyageur. Réalisée au crayon, au pastel et à l'acrylique et soutenue par un dialogue ardent entre le violoncelle et le piano, Romance est une éblouissante transcription visuelle du scherzo.

Lipsett Diaries is a descent into the maelstrom of anguish that tormented famed Canadian experimental filmmaker Arthur Lipsett, who died prematurely at age 49. Taking the form of a diary, this animated film by Theodore Ushev charts the meanderings of psychological distress, with clashes of images and sounds evoking the loneliness of the artist's childhood, his frenzied creations and his dizzying descent into depression and madness. Drawing, as Lipsett did, from archives of diverse origins, even recycling segments of Lipsett's films, Ushev renews his aesthetic by using paint and crayon on paper, to which he applies digital treatments. The result is both spectacular and daring: a fragmented and fascinating short film that plunges us into the whirlwind of a mind out of balance. A collaboration between Ushev and writer Chris Robinson, Lipsett Diaries is a singular study of what happens when genius is on a first-name basis with madness.

He lives in the shadows. The one who inspires fear. Other children don't even dream that he exists. But the young vampire Kali does exist, and suffers from not being able to live in the light. One day, while once again watching the other young boys play beside the train tracks, he breaks from his isolation and discovers that because of who-and what-he is, he can make a difference in others' lives. In a narration masterfully voiced by Oscar winner Christopher Plummer, Kali, now an old man, remembers the day he finally made peace with himself. After having dealt with a young girl's fear in A Noite (1999) and the discomfort experienced by others in Tragic Story with Happy Ending (2005), Regina Pessoa concludes her trilogy on childhood by following a child's path to self-acceptance. A poetic and beautiful tale, Kali the Little Vampire is a reminder that there is a place for every one of us under the sun. Even for the creatures of the night.