“In the Shadow of the Cypress” is a 2023 Iranian animated short by Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani. It premiered at the Venice International Film Festival and won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, making history by claiming…
Experimental animation, through its unconventional narratives, offers a compelling medium for expressing surreal feelings, personal philosophies, spiritual concerns, and abstract psychological trauma. Specifically, the unstable psychological state of the traumatized individual can be seen as placing their identity in a…
This paper presents a preliminary study on the unique surrealist qualities of Estonian animation director Priit Pärn, distinguishing his approach from that of André Breton and Jan Švankmajer. Pärn began work on animated films in the 1970s during the Soviet…
Figure 1. A still from Norstein’s The Tale of Tales, where women dancing with their husbands all the sudden appear alone. Animation, a powerful storytelling medium, has been breaking down complex ideas in a visually engaging way for over a…
Dimensions of Dialogue (1983) begins with two faces shaped out of random accoutrements such as decaying fruits and vegetables, kitchen equipment and utensils etc. The two faces move towards each other and clash in a haphazard mishmash of objects—face shapes…
Dougal and the Blue Cat is the 1970 animated film by Serge Danot that features a mysterious voice and a cat named Buxton that plot to take over the world and turn it blue. The animated film is based on…
The 2D animated short Cymebelle (Oo, 2024) is a haunting psychological mystery set in a remote village where a grieving widow clings to her lifeless child. The title, derived from “cell,” “enzyme,” and “belle” for a beautiful woman, reflects abstract…
