Theodore Ushev

In a dystopian future, a nation of bio-titans has been created and the female sex and procreation have become obsolete. As the Earth turns toxic, the bio-titans are eager to colonise the cosmos on board a colossal spaceship, taking with them only one female body kept barely alive as a reminder of the troubled past. But everything changes when the immortal calligrapher Krypton, tasked with creating an indestructible copy of the entire written heritage of his kin, sees a forbidden book turn into a feisty girl, Gargara.

While visiting his native country to shoot his first live-action film (PHI 1.618), animation filmmaker Theodore Ushev recounts the highlights of his life in Bulgaria and recalls the various underground artistic movements that have influenced him. Featuring archival footage, film clips and talking-head segments with friends and family, this fascinating documentary takes a personal and political dive into the teeming creative universe developed through experience with people and events by the award-winning director of LIPSETT DIARIES, BLIND VAYSHA and THE PHYSICS OF SORROW.

National Film Board of Canada and staff wish a Happy Birthday to Annecy Festival

How to maintain a life while on lock-down. A comic portrait of the artist in pandemic times.

When Academy Award®–winning animator and painter Joan Gratz asked eleven filmmakers if they would contribute to an omnibus film, she wasn’t sure what to expect—after prompting them to make a “one-minute memoir,” she let them figure out the rest. The One-Minute Memoir is the exuberant result: eleven stories ranging from the heartfelt to the absurd, all reflective of each director’s personal style.

A short animation edited from photos of disposed COVID-19 pandemic gloves and masks.

An animated film painted on emergency thermal safety blankets, featuring the state of emergency declarations of Trump, Macron, Putin, Merkel and many others. The harshness of the contrast between living images and dead words is everything. As in other films Ushev knows how to hit the heart and show us the pain points of contemporaneity with an extremely direct and at the same time poetic way.

Tracks an unknown man’s life as he sifts through memories of his youth in Bulgaria through to his increasingly rootless and melancholic adulthood in Canada.

Tracks an unknown man’s life as he sifts through memories of his youth in Bulgaria through to his increasingly rootless and melancholic adulthood in Canada.

Tracks an unknown man’s life as he sifts through memories of his youth in Bulgaria through to his increasingly rootless and melancholic adulthood in Canada.

Tracks an unknown man’s life as he sifts through memories of his youth in Bulgaria through to his increasingly rootless and melancholic adulthood in Canada.

Hot wax painting on a Barcelona directory; a palimpsest reflecting the violence and madness of the riots that shocked Spain in October 2019.

An animator dissects his own body, extracting memories, emotions and fears that will nurture his work. As he cuts into his skin, various symbolic objects recalling his past emerge. Reaching the heart, he succeeds in identifying the burden he’s been dying to cast off.

8 minutes and 19 seconds – that’s all the time we have until the news about the death of the sun reaches us. That's what it takes for the light to travel from there to here. And then the darkness comes… But the theme of this Apocalypse is not necessarily going to be expressed through a global cataclysm, horsemen of the apocalypse, angels of death, fire and destruction. It will rather be shown as something very personal, intimate and almost silent.

A deep dive into a snowstorm of structural chaos and a blizzard of exploding gestural animation.

An interpretation of French Cancan by Renoir.

A Japanese-produced animated film using Antonio Vivaldi's Four Seasons as its soundtrack. The four seasons all have separate animation directors. Its production was partly crowdfunded. The film premiered in Kitakyushu in 2017 along with a live performance of the Four Seasons and this performance was recorded and distributed to supporters of the project.

A collection of the animated short films nominated for the 2017 Academy Awards. 1. Blind Vaysha ("Vaysha l'aveugle", Canada, 8') 2. Borrowed Time (US, 7') 3. Pear Cider and Cigarettes (Canada/UK, 35') 4. Pearl (US, 6') 5. Piper (US, 6')

Made with the filmmaker’s blood, a testament to the ideals that we fight and die for.

From the moment she was born, Vaysha was a very special girl. With her left eye she can only see into the past, and with her right she can only see the future. The past is familiar and safe, the future is sinister and threatening. The present is a blind spot. In captivating parabolic imagery, the award-winning animation artist Theodore Ushev illustrates the world through Vaysha’s eyes.

From the moment she was born, Vaysha was a very special girl. With her left eye she can only see into the past, and with her right she can only see the future. The past is familiar and safe, the future is sinister and threatening. The present is a blind spot. In captivating parabolic imagery, the award-winning animation artist Theodore Ushev illustrates the world through Vaysha’s eyes.

From the moment she was born, Vaysha was a very special girl. With her left eye she can only see into the past, and with her right she can only see the future. The past is familiar and safe, the future is sinister and threatening. The present is a blind spot. In captivating parabolic imagery, the award-winning animation artist Theodore Ushev illustrates the world through Vaysha’s eyes.

Director Theodore Ushev uses his own blood to animate struggles with injustice in the world.

Director Theodore Ushev uses his own blood to animate struggles with injustice in the world.

Director Theodore Ushev uses his own blood to animate struggles with injustice in the world.

Director Theodore Ushev uses his own blood to animate struggles with injustice in the world.

With the shade around her waist, she dreams on her balcony. Under the gypsy moon, all things are watching her, and she cannot see them. A surrealist journey through colors and shapes inspired by the poem Romance Sonambulo by Federico Garcia Lorca. Visual poetry in the rhythm of fantastic dreams and passionate nights.

With the shade around her waist, she dreams on her balcony. Under the gypsy moon, all things are watching her, and she cannot see them. A surrealist journey through colors and shapes inspired by the poem Romance Sonambulo by Federico Garcia Lorca. Visual poetry in the rhythm of fantastic dreams and passionate nights.

Three books: a film festival catalogue, a dictionary, the Bible. Three works whose materiality has become obsolete by the digital dematerialization. A commentary on the fragility of culture.

Three books: a film festival catalogue, a dictionary, the Bible. Three works whose materiality has become obsolete by the digital dematerialization. A commentary on the fragility of culture.

Theodore Ushev’s acclaimed 20th century trilogy concludes with this brilliant fusion of 3D and Russian constructivist-styled animation. Recycling elements of surrealism and cubism, this animated short by Theodore Ushev focuses on the relationship between art and war. Propelled by the exalting “invasion” theme from Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony (No. 7), the film presents imagery of combat fronts and massacres, leading us from Dresden to Guernica, from the Spanish Civil War to Star Wars. It is at once a symphony that serves the war machine, that stirs the masses, and art that mourns the dead, voices its outrage and calls for peace.

Theodore Ushev’s acclaimed 20th century trilogy concludes with this brilliant fusion of 3D and Russian constructivist-styled animation. Recycling elements of surrealism and cubism, this animated short by Theodore Ushev focuses on the relationship between art and war. Propelled by the exalting “invasion” theme from Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony (No. 7), the film presents imagery of combat fronts and massacres, leading us from Dresden to Guernica, from the Spanish Civil War to Star Wars. It is at once a symphony that serves the war machine, that stirs the masses, and art that mourns the dead, voices its outrage and calls for peace.

A woman writes a letter that will be read by a man in prison. A letter full of love, worry, compassion, suffering and hope. Freedom for Jafar Panahi, and all imprisoned Iranian filmmakers.

This metaphorical surrealist tale is an allusion. NIGHTINGALES IN DECEMBER is a trip into the memories, and the fields of the current realities. What if the Nightingales were working, instead of singing and going south? Is the innocence the only savior of birdsongs? There are no Nightingales in December... What is left, is only the history of our beginning, and our end.

This metaphorical surrealist tale is an allusion. NIGHTINGALES IN DECEMBER is a trip into the memories, and the fields of the current realities. What if the Nightingales were working, instead of singing and going south? Is the innocence the only savior of birdsongs? There are no Nightingales in December... What is left, is only the history of our beginning, and our end.

Animated short from Theodore Ushev

Reflection is an exploration of Montreal through an abstract lens. Director Sylvie Trouvé examines how reflected images pervade our surroundings, how our senses filter out these ghost images and, finally, how the camera can capture emotions created by a shimmering puddle or a sparkling coloured glass surface. At the same time, Trouvé raises a new awareness of our urban environment. The editing, which animator Theodore Ushev collaborated on in a spirit of mutual emulation, embraces an animation aesthetic that fully respects the filmmaker’s artistic vision. While examining our relationship with images, this exploration of the city blurs the distinction between real-life shots and animation. Indeed, though inspired by reality, the film is thoroughly immersed in the world of animation.

A descent into the maelstrom of anguish that tormented Arthur Lipsett, a famed Canadian experimental filmmaker who died at 49. A diary transmuted into a clash of images and sounds charting a prodigious frenzy of creation, a tableau depicting an artist’s dizzying descent into depression and madness: with LIPSETT DIARIES, Theodore Ushev renews his filmmaking aesthetic and explores what happens when genius is on a first-name basis with madness.

From the NFB: He is a young man; an optimist drawn to dark music and the themes of death and suffering. Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin has gained a reputation for his dedication, musicality and charisma. Combining documentary and animation, this short film captures his energy and passion, both in performance and in conversation.

From the NFB: He is a young man; an optimist drawn to dark music and the themes of death and suffering. Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin has gained a reputation for his dedication, musicality and charisma. Combining documentary and animation, this short film captures his energy and passion, both in performance and in conversation.

From the NFB: He is a young man; an optimist drawn to dark music and the themes of death and suffering. Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin has gained a reputation for his dedication, musicality and charisma. Combining documentary and animation, this short film captures his energy and passion, both in performance and in conversation.

Partly figurative, partly abstract, Drux Flux is an animation film of fast-flowing images showing modern people crushed by industry. Inspired by One-Dimensional Man by the philosopher Herbert Marcus…

This animated short by Theodore Ushev combines warmth, humour and magic in a story about a young girl who misses her grandmother. When Lili finds a tzaritza (magic shell) along the seashore, she hatches a plan to bring her Grandma from Bulgaria to Montreal to make her father happy.

This animated short by Theodore Ushev combines warmth, humour and magic in a story about a young girl who misses her grandmother. When Lili finds a tzaritza (magic shell) along the seashore, she hatches a plan to bring her Grandma from Bulgaria to Montreal to make her father happy.

This animated short by Theodore Ushev combines warmth, humour and magic in a story about a young girl who misses her grandmother. When Lili finds a tzaritza (magic shell) along the seashore, she hatches a plan to bring her Grandma from Bulgaria to Montreal to make her father happy.

Set to a kinetic soundtrack, Sou is a dazzling multi-layered animated collage piece on how a Western man, through ill-equipped eyes, views the seductive qualities of the pell mell kitsch that is the modern Japanese society.

This animated short by Theodore Ushev is like a whirlwind tour of Russian constructivist art and is filled with visual references to artists of the era, including Vertov, Stenberg, Rodchenko, Lissitsky and Popova.

This animated short by Theodore Ushev is like a whirlwind tour of Russian constructivist art and is filled with visual references to artists of the era, including Vertov, Stenberg, Rodchenko, Lissitsky and Popova.

This animated short by Theodore Ushev is like a whirlwind tour of Russian constructivist art and is filled with visual references to artists of the era, including Vertov, Stenberg, Rodchenko, Lissitsky and Popova.

Franz Kafka short film

To the sound of a ramshackle brass band, a world slides towards ruin, carrying with it houses, birds, idols, balloons and whatever is left of reason. Theodore Ushev's Vertical combines expressionistic graphics with a scathing black humour and sense of the absurd.