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NFB launches 12th edition of Get Animated!—with a scary Halloween treat! Five free online animation premieres at NFB.ca, in time for International Animation Day.

PRESS RELEASE
23/10/2018

October 22, 2018 – Montreal – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)

For the 12th edition of the National Film Board of Canada’s FREE online showcase Get Animated!, the NFB is celebrating International Animation Day (October 28) and Halloween this year—with a special program that includes the online streaming premiere of Sylvie Trouvé and Dale Hayward’s chilling Slavic folklore-inspired short Bone Mother.

Beginning October 22, Get Animated! will feature eight NFB animated shorts, including five online premieres, and three live-draws on Facebook from animators Pascal Blanchet and Rodolphe Saint-Gelais (Le Cortège), Oscar winner Torill Kove (Threads) and Alex Boya (Turbine).

Online premieres

  • Iranian-born animator Ehsan Gharib’s first professional film, Deyzangeroo, winner of the Golden Dove at Germany’s International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film.
  • Labrador Inuk artist Echo Henoche’s Shaman, bringing to life her favourite legend from her home community in Nunatsiavut, as told to her by her grandfather, renowned Inuk artist Gilbert Hay.
  • Quebec filmmaker Patrick Péris’ Nadine, a live-action/animated look at the turmoil of love at first sight in the digital age, named Best Children/Youth Production at the Yorkton Film Festival
  • The darkly funny coming-of-age story Shop Class from Hart Snider, a Vancouver filmmaker who tells personal and ultimately inspirational stories about his early years in Edmonton. (Starts October 29.)
  • … as well as Bone Mother—Montreal husband-and-wife animation duo Sylvie Trouvé and Dale Hayward’s blend of 3D-printing technology and thousands of painstakingly hand-painted models, bringing the supernatural being Baba Yaga and the merciless Vlad the Impaler back to spine-tingling life. (Starts October 25.)

More about the films

Bone Mother (8 min 25 s)
Synopsis, biographies, images: http://mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/bone-mother/

  • Who dares to disturb the devil’s grandmother and enter her slumbering house of bones? Who is foolish enough to betray this immortal nature-spirit, whose iron teeth gnash with insatiable hunger? Baba Yaga surely holds the answers you need, but are they the answers you seek? Tread lightly, all those who pass this way, for your ambitious schemes could come back to haunt you…
  • In the deep forests of 15th-century Eastern Europe, a vain and arrogant prince sets off on a quest for immortality. But what he finds is an ancient guardian too terrible and powerful to deceive.
  • Sylvie Trouvé and Dale Hayward founded See Creature Animation in 2011. They’re both Montreal-based animation filmmakers, with Trouvé a 2009 alumnus of the NFB’s Hothouse apprenticeship program.
  • Bone Mother is produced by Jelena Popović and executive produced by Michael Fukushima for the NFB’s English Program Animation Studio in Montreal.

Shop Class (8 min 49 s)
Synopsis, biographies, images: http://mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/shopclass/

  • Hart Snider takes us back to junior high school in the late ’80s for a tale inspired by his adolescence in Edmonton. Shop Class is an honest look at growing up, exploring themes of high-school alienation, old-fashioned gender roles and becoming comfortable in your own skin—through the eyes of a teenager who is no longer a boy but is not quite sure what it means to be a man.
  • All characters are voiced by Fred Ewanuick, best known for his lead roles as “Hank” in Corner Gas and “Dan Phillips” in Dan For Mayor.
  • Hart’s first animated short, The Basketball Game (2011), won Best Animated Film at the ViewFinders International Film Festival and was recognized by the Alberta government for being “innovative and thought-provoking” and “informing audiences on how hate and discrimination impact children.”
  • Shop Class is produced and executive produced by Shirley Vercruysse for the BC and Yukon Studio in Vancouver.

Nadine (4 min 32 s)
Synopsis, biographies, images: http://mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/nadine/

  • Sam is studying quietly in the library when he’s suddenly distracted by the most beautiful girl in the world. When she takes a seat right in front of him, he is immediately bewitched. Who is she? And how should he go about approaching her? This shy adolescent with an overactive imagination has no choice but to find the courage within himself to talk to her before it’s too late.
  • Quebec filmmaker Patrick Péris is a versatile multidisciplinary artist and director who developed his signature look and mastered a range of techniques while working on various projects, including his short films Our Seasons (2013) and Grenailles (2014).
  • Produced by Marc Bertrand and executive produced by Julie Roy for the French Program Animation Studio in Montreal.

Shaman (5 min)
Synopsis, biographies, images: https://mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/shaman/

  • Growing up, Echo Henoche loved hearing her grandfather Gilbert Hay recount stories and legends passed down through countless generations. Her favourite was about the white stone atop Mount Sophie, just across the harbour from her home in Nain, Nunatsiavut, on the North Coast of Labrador.
  • The stone is said to be all that remains of a ferocious polar bear that once terrorized the villagers. Legend has it that with the help of a powerful shaman, the community was able to save a young mother and child from the polar bear’s rampage, turning the beast to stone.
  • In her first film, Echo brings this story to life from her own perspective, transforming her illustrations into a beautiful and personal hand-drawn animation style.
  • Shaman is produced by Kat Baulu and executive produced by Annette Clarke for the Quebec and Atlantic Studio.

Deyzangeroo (4 min)
Synopsis, biographies, images: http://mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/deyzangeroo/

  • “Deyzangeroo” is a ritual performed in the Iranian port city of Bushehr. Influenced by the city’s colonial rule by the British and Portuguese, and the African slaves that followed, it is imbued with the terror and magic of the lunar eclipse. The ritual is believed to ward off evil spirits and take back the moon. It works every time.
  • Deyzangeroo uses hand-painted animation, time-lapse photography and trick photography using mirrors, and features the haunting music of composer and virtuoso percussionist Habib Meftah Boushehri.
  • Born in Arak, Iran, in 1983, Ehsan Gharib is a designer and photographer who studied at the Soroush film school in Tehran and at Concordia University in Montreal. This is his first professional film.
  • Produced at the NFB by Maral Mohammadian, with executive producer Michael Fukushima, for the English Program Animation Studio.

About International Animation Day

In 2002, the International Animated Film Association (ASIFA) launched International Animation Day to commemorate the first public performance of Émile Reynaud’s Théâtre Optique at the Musée Grévin in Paris on October 28, 1892. This celebration is held in over 40 countries, and the NFB is taking part for the 12th straight year through Get Animated!

#animezvous #getanimated

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Related Products

Electronic Press Kit | Images, trailers, synopsis: Bone Mother | Deyzangeroo | Nadine | Shaman | Shop Class

Associated Links

International Animation Day

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  • About the NFB

    The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) is a leader in exploring animation as an artform, a storytelling medium and innovative content for emerging platforms. It produces trailblazing animated works both in its Montreal studios and across  the country, and it works with many of the world’s leading creators on international co-productions. NFB productions have won more than 7,000 awards, including seven Oscars for NFB animation and seven grand prizes at the Annecy festival. To access this unique content, visit NFB.ca.