Marc Bertrand

Elderly inmates are dying mysteriously one after another in their prison cells.

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.

"You know, when I was a boy, I fell in love with the Virgin Mary. It happened in a little Bavarian town called Altötting."

"What does the hangman think about when he goes home at night from work?" ​ The Hangman at Home is an animated film exploring themes surrounding acknowledgement and the awkward intimacy of humanness. Told in five interwoven stories; each situation presents a person, or persons in a delicate moment: fragile, playful, terrified, contemplated, confused, curious… We are all very much alike in these moments - alerting us to question our own responsibility and responses. Inspired by Carl Sandburg’s chilling poem of the same name.

The hedgehog between balloons, the feline predator on the hamster wheel, the fish in the lifebuoy: A young woman portrays herself in the best possible light in her self-description.

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.

Every child knows full well that losing a tooth is only the prologue to a magical experience—namely, a night-time visit from the tooth fairy and the gift she leaves behind. So why, in this case, is the tooth fairy a no-show? These are the sorts of questions a father needs to be able to answer for his son… In this brilliantly simple animated short, Quebec cartoonist Guy Delisle brings to the screen the titular parent of his popular series, Le guide du mauvais père (A User’s Guide to Neglectful Parenting), published by Delcourt. Inspired by a common childhood experience, Delisle uses his trademark wry humour to reflect on the vagaries of parenting. A slice of everyday life, courtesy of the Comic Strip Chronicles.

Brilliantly mixing animated sequences and archival footage, Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre paints a touching portrait of virtuoso pianist Oscar Peterson.

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.

Mamie is a Canadian-French short animated film by Janice Nadeau.

He is a magician. She is a firefighter. Isolating themselves from the chaos of a world in turmoil, the two lovers live in a crane basket high in the sky, where they go about their daily business. Their challenge is to keep their heads, here up above it all, while everything is falling apart down below. But when reality calls – when fires need quenching and people need entertaining – how can they best make themselves useful in a world gone off the rails?

An elderly Japanese man visits a strange island, where he disappears in his own memories.

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.

In this evocative film about the eternal human search for home, Berta and Solomon arrive in a land that promises respite from their many journeys. But have they found utopia... or just another stop on their long journey?

Living alone in darkness, Kaspar has experienced little oflife until he’s discovered by a man in black and brought outinto the world. Animator Diane Obomsawin’s affecting fableis based on the tale of the nineteenth century’s most famous wild child.

While on an airplane, a traveller's spirit plunges into a dream world. Here, under the influence of the unknown, the logic of his desires prevails, and a romantic saga takes shape.

This animated short by Claude Cloutier is a pictorial account of an attack on Canadian soldiers during WWI. On the edge of the battlefield, recruits are dreading the order to attack. At the signal, a young soldier leaps into a hell of fire and blood where the earth engulfs both the living and the dead. Blending archival images and Cloutier’s hypnotizing brushstroke, the film is a dazzling illustration of the futility of war.

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…

The selfishness of the bourgeoisie and the dull passivity of its servants are the theme of this puppet animation presenting the tragicomedy of a society in its death throes, taking refuge in absurd behaviour.

How unbelievably boring is the life of a solitary cowboy living in the middle of a vast prairie, surrounded by stupid chickens clucking and a shapeless bovine! Not surprising then if his temper turns fowl. Based on a strip cartoon by the Swiss writer Ibn Al Rabin, Cot Cot is a hilarious parody of the western, featuring a cowboy at the end of his tether and a cow that's much smarter than she looks.

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

In this animated short, filmmaker Diane Obomsawin shows how childhood can be a chaotic time, especially if you're bouncing back and forth between two continents. With engaging candour and gentle humour, Obomsawin fleshes out an uncertain identity and takes control of her life. Using drawings on paper and digitized snippets of fabric, she creates a whimsical world of simple lines and pastel tones.

Pimp My Boat is a hilarious parody of the popular TV series Pimp My Ride. We meet host Bubs and his gang on the Belle-Côte wharf. Their mission: to customize the boat belonging to Albény, an old fisherman. Culture shock ensues as Acadian traditions collide with global pop culture. Urban imagery invades the countryside in the unique musical landscape of les Acadiens.

In this non-narrative animated film inspired by composer François Couperin's harpsichord composition "Barricades mystérieuses," Jacques Drouin explores a whole new way of using the pinscreen to create animated images. He pivots the screen and uses low-angled light to capture images in high relief. The result is like a sculpture whose expertly modelled forms are revealed through film. A film without words.

Billionaire businessman Noel Noel is long on cash but short on social graces; so when he finds himself falling for the fairy Beatrice, he mistakenly thinks he can buy her love with material gifts. It takes a little girl named Zooey, her dog Snooze, and a blue-eyed reindeer to help Noel Noel learn the true meaning of love in this animated Christmas fable that features narration by Leslie Nielson (AIRPLANE, NAKED GUN) and music by French-Canadian songstress Ariane Moffatt.

With its interplay of shadow and light, of paint in movement, BLUE LIKE A GUNSHOT is a work of great visual power. It is also a reflection on our world. In its evocation of the conflict between civilization and nature, the absurd vanity of human warfare contrasts with the harmony of the natural world.

The film is an abstract allegory, showing two penguins with different ideas abot sea creatures that are their food or their shadows, depending on the perspective. Basically, sense-twisting animation.

Why isn't it green, yellow or striped?

A minute of science, please. is a delightful collection of small one-minute films each explaining, using animation, archival images, and an often humorous narrative, various phenomena and scientific discoveries.

What's the angle on mirrors?

What keeps us down to earth? This clip from Science Please! answers the question.

What makes a fridge cool? A clip from the Science Please! collection.

What do X-rays, microwaves and light have in common? Part of the Science Please! collection for children.

Where would we be without these microscopic particles?

Are cows a time bomb just waiting to explode? Part of the Science Please. collection for children.

What lights your fire? Part of the Science Please! collection for children.

Propelled by Claude Cloutier’s signature drawing style and absurdist humour, this animated short offers an overview of the evolution of life on Earth from rock to human, with some surprising twists in between.

A clip in the Science Please! collection, Battery uses archival footage, animated illustrations and amusing narration to explain: Why do we get a charge out of batteries?

A clip in the Science Please! collection, The Moon Changes uses archival footage, animated illustrations and amusing narration to explain what causes the different phases of the moon.

A clip in the Science Please! collection,Lift Off uses archival footage, animated illustrations and amusing narration to explain what makes a rocket lift off.

A clip in the Science Please collection, The State of the Matter uses archival footage, animated illustrations and amusing narration to explain how temperature affects the state of matter.

A clip in the Science Please! collection, Sound Is Vibration uses archival footage, animated illustrations and amusing narration to explain what is the sound.

A clip in the Science Please! collection, Operation Lever uses archival footage, animated illustrations and amusing narration to explain how a lever increases force.

A clip in the Science Please! collection, Magnets uses archival footage, animated illustrations and amusing narration to explain: North Pole, South Pole... what's the big attraction?

Edison's bright idea, or how the electric light bulb works?

A clip in the Science Please! collection, Lightning uses archival footage, animated illustrations and amusing narration to explain: What causes the electrical discharge we see as lightning?

How do we convert motion into electricity?

Four strokes of genius.

A clip in the Science Please. collection, The Wonderful World of Colour uses archival footage, animated illustrations and amusing narration to explain how the cones of the retina enable us to perceive the spectrum of colours.

A clip in the Science Please! collection, Slippery Ice! uses archival footage, animated illustrations and amusing narration to explain why we slip on ice.

A clip in the Science Please! collection, The Force of Water uses archival footage, animated illustration and amusing narration to explain the Archimedes principle, of why some things float and others sink.