Circo Animato 2023

Fantasia’s annual showcase of amazing animated short films from around the world returns with 10 dazzling offerings, marvellously multifarious in tone, technique, and perspective. This year’s selections, including world premieres, come from Singapore, South Korea, Hungary, China, India, France, Japan, and right here in Canada.

When a little girl takes liberties in her retelling of an important Taoist fable, her teacher strives to suppress her creativity, in THE STORY OF CHAOS, a subversively cute little stop-motion gem from Singapore’s Yu Qing Quek. MEET AGAIN, by South Korea’s Kang Apsol and Lee Yoorim, is an energetic, colourful, wordless musical fantasy that packs a whole lot of story into a mere five minutes, while HERMIT ISLAND, from Hungary’s Gábor Mariai, is a satisfying slice of psychedelic sci-fantasy silliness, weird, witty, and wise. A news photograph capturing an ordinary event sparks rumours on a stormy day in THE TYPHOON DAY, Hu Yiyi’s graduation project from the esteemed animation department of the China Academy of Arts. Memories of an absent loved one emerge from an old video camera in 6MM WAVE, a gorgeous, wistful work of austere graphic minimalism from South Korea’s Jeong Seungho. A little boy made of paper has nightmares of a knife monster in THE BRAVEST KID, the second episode of the PERFECT CITY project from innovative Chinese stop-motion animator Zhou Shengwei (SHE, Fantasia 2019).

SHAPE OF WIND is a wilderness drama with folkloric flourishes, delivered in a vivid impressionist style by South Korea’s Lee Sunggang (MY BEAUTIFUL GIRL, MARI). A project guided by noted Kolkata, India studio Ghost Animation (WADE), Neeraj Bhattacharjee’s meticulously crafted cosmic voyage RECORD. PLAY. STOP. is accompanied by Mumbai artist Noni-Mouse’s astounding, extraterrestrial soundscape/score. An endlessly mutable inkblot creature oozes its way into Molly’s life in the “urban fairy tale” JELLY, a personal passion project from Emmy-winning veteran animator Robin Budd (RETURN TO NEVER LAND, TV’s BEETLEJUICE), with music by Daniel Lanois. Concluding the cavalcade, a team of modern anime luminaries (including Rintaro and Katsuhiro Otomo) revives a lost gem of early cinema with NEZUMIKOZO JIROKICHI. A witty, heartfelt celebration of Japanese popular culture across the centuries! – Rupert Bottenberg