Fantasia’s annual animated short film program returns, with a new name and some very, very new movies. Of the dozen shorts on the menu, four are World Premieres, and another five screening in North America for the first time. The moments here range from the melancholic, the morbid and the meditative to the hallucinatory and the hilarious – these are cartoons, after all! Making their World Premieres at CIRCO ANIMATO 2018 are a pair from South Korea – Park Yena’s LOVELY GIRL (an internal affair, of sorts), and Seo Ji-hyeong’s snarky mash-up of hand-drawn and 8-bit animation, CRAZY CAT. As well, from the U.S., filmmaker Winnie Cheung presents ALBATROSS SOUP, a dizzying descent into deductive reasoning, animated from illustrations by celebrated Toronto artist Fiona Smyth. And from right here in Montreal, enfants terribles of the underground art scene Rick Trembles and Raph Bard get you in on the ground floor of BUILDING 108: BARNACLE BILL THE TAILOR.
Over on the North American Premiere side of things, Toon Loenders and Paul Driessen (Belgium, Netherlands) unleash their riotous THE ORIGIN OF SOUND, a showcase of 20-plus animators. China’s Lei Lei lets loose with freeform doodling and a vicious rap attack in I DON'T LIKE THE COMICS YOU DREW. South Korea’s Kim JiHyeon drops us ashore at her creepy ISLAND OF THE DECEASED. Toronto’s Samuel Bradley takes us even further with his sci-fi fable SPACE BETWEEN STARS (with music by Jim Guthrie), and THE VOICE OVER, from Belgium’s Claudia Cortés Espejo, Lora D'Addazio, Mathilde Remy, will really get inside your head. From Belgium as well, SIMBIOSIS CARNAL, a rhapsody in red and blue by Rocío Álvarez, makes its Canadian Premiere. American-Chinese studio Taiko’s ONE SMALL STEP, from directors Andrew Chesworth and Bobby Pontillas, will leave stars –and maybe a tear or two – in your eyes. Wrapping things up is THE RICOCHET SPLENDID, from Argentina’s Pablo Gostanian – the most awesomest opening ever, for the greatest anime TV show never. – Rupert Bottenberg
