See a special screening of films by two animators competing for the 2016 Academy Awards!
AWARD-WINNING SHORT FILMS OF CORDELL BARKER & CLAUDE CLOUTIER
Saturday January 2 @ 3:00pm
Shut Up & Eat – Rally Room
3848 SE Gladstone St
Portland, OR 97202
FREE and open to the public
The short list for this season’s Academy Awards includes two animators from the National Film Board of Canada: Cordell Barker and Claude Cloutier. Kicking off the new year with a bang, ASIFA Portland is pleased to present both of these master artists’ Oscar-nominated shorts, plus four impressive examples of their past work.
Cordell Barker’s 2016 nomination is for “If I Was God…” — a quasi-autobiographical musing on the director’s memories of school. Triggered by an incident involving a frog and electricity during dissection class, the young artist hopes to one day wield Godlike powers to get his own way. This will be Barker’s third Oscar nomination, following “The Cat Came Back” (1988) and “Strange Invaders” (2001). More recently, Barker’s madcap comedy “Runaway” (2009), which pokes fun at class disparities between passengers on a out-of-control train, took home a special jury award from the renowned Annecy International Animation Festival.
“Carface” will be Claude Cloutier’s first Oscar nomination. It’s a whirling automotive waltz, wherein carefree cars cavort in all directions to the tune of “Que Sera, Sera,” while the black ooze that fuels them is unremittingly pumped from Mother Earth. If Busby Berkeley and Mel Brooks were asked to co-direct the apocalypse, it might look like this uproarious spectacle of destruction. “Sleeping Betty” is a skewed, anachronistic take on the classic fairy; “The Trenches” blends archival images from WWI with Cloutier’s hypnotizing brushstrokes to create a powerful illustration of the futility of war.
PROGRAM
1. If I Was God… – Barker (8:30)
2. Carface – Cloutier (4:44)
3. The Cat Came Back – Barker (7:40)
4. Sleeping Betty – Cloutier (9:13)
5. Runaway – Barker (9:10)
6. The Trenches – Cloutier (5:54)
Runtime: 49min