Charel, a bored, balding man in his fifties, still lives with his mother. The clumsy bachelor sees in her pet—a bass in a fishbowl that is far too small—the grandchild he never could give her.
How do you abstract the death of a loved one? What texture do you give it? What colour? After the loss of his father, LUCA alumnus Brecht De Cock sculpted a transmedial response to these impossible questions.
In this hybrid 3D animated film, a pseudo-intellectual menagerie reflects on the contemporary political landscape on the other side of the Corsican Sea through dry wit and Disney fonts.
People are heading for a better place on either side of the ocean. Although their paths do cross at times, they never really seem to meet. Paradise is a light-hearted yet critical reflection on the ethics of tourism.
Inseparable best friends spend their last summer holiday of childhood amusing themselves around the house. As summer progresses, their bodies start to morph and shift, and an awkwardness descends on their friendship. Puberty seems determined to interrupt their bond.
After managing to scrape together money to pay for an abortion, the director decides to celebrate with a party. In attendance are her geriatric ska musician neighbor, semi-retired gang affiliates, her gay roommate, and ever-present bedbugs.
This experimental animated film delves into feelings of loss and helplessness, remnants of a traumatic experience. The emotional wounds are visually translated into a pulsating presence that embodies a dark and disturbing image of femininity.
Hand-painted watercolours explore bodies, desire, and the tension between both in this experimental animated film. Due to an explosion of colour and movement that escapes classical animation, an unusual sensorial force is achieved. Alternating colours, lines, and density, the drawings question pornography and normative sexuality.
It is sometimes said that if a man places a pearl under the skin of his penis, he will bring the woman the greatest pleasure. He grants her the greatest of all pleasures, while she will give him anything he desires. After a playful love dance, she melts into him, at the cost of losing themselves in each other to arrive at their deepest desires.
On the outskirts of the city, the new modern buildings are silent, and the motorway bridge drones. Birds are circling in the sky, and a young man, concealed by his hoodie, is riding his e-scooter along a park path. The only irritating element is the rifle over his shoulder. Cyclepaths conveys a mood of high alert, even though the disaster has, in fact, already happened.
A little girl is taken on a mind-bending tour of her distant future. An element of childhood whimsy is integral to balancing out the film’s dark absurdism, paving the way for its core theme: life is precious, and the sadness permeating our day-to-day is a reminder to cherish it.
This short animated film seems playful only at first glance—in fact, it tells the story of a life on the margins of society in a no less disturbing way. While the filmmaker is reading quotes from conversations with an invalid man from eastern Germany, a mechanical ballet of light switches and plastic dolls is set in motion.
A poetic amalgam of Yuri Norstein’s memories, hopes, and fears for the future. Tale of Tales depicts his post-war childhood, remnants of the personal tragedies of war, and the little wolf character in the lullaby his mother used to sing.
Norman McLaren applies the principles used to animate drawings or puppets to animate live actors. Neighbours is a parable about two people who come to blows over the possession of a flower. The political context shifts depending on the viewers’ personal positions.
As a heavy fog shrouds the wild woods, a helpless hedgehog starts wandering in the powdery mist. Will the young visitor find his way home? Hedgehog in the Fog has generated its own lore, and there is even a monument to the hedgehog in Kyiv.
On a lonely planet, a musical is enacted in a modern marketplace. The employees of various commercial venues, portrayed as anthropomorphic animals, cope with boredom and existential anxiety by performing cheerful showtunes.
In the Oscar-winning The Wrong Trousers, the kind-hearted, cheese-loving bachelor and inventor Wallace rents out his loyal and intelligent anthropomorphic dog’s bedroom to a penguin.
Dimensions of Dialogue demonstrates that communication can and will break down. During this 12-minute magnum opus, Jan Švankmajer demonstrates his virtuosity and limitless invention by shifting his artistic style and animation techniques three times.
Zbigniew Rybczynski worked eight hours a day for ten months on the Oscar-winning Tango. He brings together a jumble of cut-out photos featuring countless figures of all kinds and ages in a flawlessly synchronised animation. The work was formally highly innovative at the time.
In this short animated film by Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park, various zoo animals are interviewed about their living conditions. The film points to issues regarding the living conditions of wild animals, but succeeds in doing so with a lot of humour.
Begone Dull Care brings a wild piece of music to life with abstract expressionist animation. Evelyn Lambart and Norman McLaren painted colours, shapes, and transformations directly onto their filmstrip, impossible to simulate with digital tools.
In what is widely considered his greatest film, Len Lye reduces cinema to its most basic elements by scratching onto black and white film, using a variety of means ranging from dental tools to an ancient Native American arrowhead. The title references modern physics: ‘free radicals’ are particles of energy.
In Suzan Pitt’s cult classic Asparagus, the indomitable growth of an asparagus plant is associated with female sexuality. As the urbane world turns absurdist, the green fruit transforms this reality.
A woman trips and falls while rushing around the house. She gets up only to discover that her home has unusual features—it is built from paradoxes, filled with illusions, and covered with patterns.
Emma De Swaef, Marc James Roels, Belgium, 2011, 17’
A gentle, middle-aged man returns to the nudist colony he grew up in to visit his elderly mother. Her sudden death leaves Willy in a state of sadness. He soon finds himself lost in the midst of a savage wilderness, trying to find comfort.
In this cyberpunk animation, four creatures wobble like marionettes in a black void. An alien power tries to subdue them; police voices strike as if they were truncheons, but these vulnerable bodies start to fight back.
Day and night, a giant sits on a hill, far away from his smaller fellow man. He fills his days organising things and making sure everything is in the right place at the right time.
