International Competition Block 2 - SEAF 2023
Friday, October 6, 2023 - 7:00 PM - The Charles Theatre
Saturday, October 7, 2023 - 7:00 PM - TU Van Bokkelen Hall Theatre
Sunday, October 8, 2023 - 4:00 PM - MICA Falvey Hall Theatre
Runtime = 75 minutes
Q&A with animators in attendance after the screening
​​Go to 2023seaf.eventbrite.com to purchase tickets to this screening program or to buy an all-access pass!
$12 for individual tickets / $80 for all-access festival pass
​
International Competition Block 2 brings incredible animated short films from 9 countries. A dog relationship, kinetic machines, tea restores life, wildness at the garden edge, human recycling, abstract dreamscape, tasting dead bug ash, space baby with a saxophone, stuck in the past, worm disconnection, escape from the deer king, unfinished drawings come to life, and a motorcycle chase through the post apocalypse.
Superdog
Director - Xian Zhong
Country - Taiwan
Time - 3:23
Adapted from a story written when the director was ten, the film Superdog is a story of a girl and her dog.
System
Director - Dana Sink
Country - United States
Time - 2:34
An animated film intersecting machinery, life, and our subconscious. System.
Teacups
Director - Alec Green, Finbar Watson
Country - Australia
Time - 7:35
For almost half a century, Don Ritchie would approach people contemplating suicide at the edge of a cliff, just 100 feet from his home, his palms facing up. Voiced by Hugo Weaving, Teacups explores Don's surreal interactions with years of suicidal individuals and his journey to reconcile the suicide of his best friend. The film asks, can a simple act of kindness save a life?
Hedge Rider
Director - Emily Pelstring
Country - Canada
Time - 6:51
The Hedge-Rider is a figure who sits at the boundary between the tamed garden and the wild, or resides at the edge of the village. I became curious about her while reading a book called Dreamtime: Concerning the Boundary between Wilderness and Civilization (1975), by Hans Peter Duerr, which links her to the German “hagazussa”, who would later become the “hag” in modern English, and inform the image of the early modern European witch. The film attempts to capture altered states of consciousness achieved through the use of flying ointments, and tensions at the false threshold between humans and the more-than-human world.
Human Resources
Director - Trinidad Plass Caussade, Titouan Tillier, Isaac Wenzek
Country - France
Time - 3:30
Andy, followed by a friend filming the scene, goes to his recycling appointment. Wanda, the secretary of the company, welcomes him. We follow Andy through the whole process, until his last seconds of life.
Jung & Restless
Director - Joanna Priestley
Country - United States
Time - 6:06
Jung & Restless dives into the mythopoetic realm with mandalas and dream inspired images that grasp at enigma. It invokes the oddity and magic of dreaming. Jung & Restless began while I was working with a senior Jungian analyst and stopped dreaming. I started animating short free form experiments, working intuitively without reflection, scrutiny or planning. A decade later I created a film from this material, adding mandalas of dream images and classic Jungian symbols.
Midnight Ash
Director - Pilar Garcia-Fernandezsesma
Country - United States
Time - 1:46
A woman reminisces about her childhood and her strained relationship with her mother.
Journey
Director - Julian Frener, Philip Laa
Country - Austria
Time - 2:34
Every world and every organism has its own individual journey, which is told in its own way. Thus, life is also a journey that begins with something fragile and ends with something fragile, with which the circle of life closes and begins again. Abstract impressions and fluid changes shape this journey and pave the foundation for all life in this world, real or fictional.
Slow Light
Director - Katarzyna Kijeck, Przemysław Adamski
Country - Poland
Time - 11:00
A boy who was born blind, suddenly at the age of seven sees a light. A medical examination reveals that his eyes are so dense that it takes seven years for the light to reach the retina and hence for the image to reach his consciousness. The consequence of the eye defect translates into the mental immaturity of the man, lack of understanding of the present and belated reflections on long-gone facts. The man is never mature enough for his age and constantly lingers on the past. Film made in original technique representing the tactile reality of the present and 2D animation showing the past.  
WO RM
Director - Julia Chien
Country - United States
Time - 7:43
A split worm searches for his bottom half.
Le Parc aux Cerfs
Director - Mahault Robin, Apolline Bucher, Marine Azam, Lilou Dubreuil, Louise Moulis, Nicolas Wilhelm
Country - France
Time - 6:45
Diane, the King's favorite courtesan is held captive in the « Parc Aux Cerfs », but she only has one desire. This desire isn’t to share the king’s bed. She is desperate to escape her golden cage. One night, while the King had lowered his vigilance, she decides to escape.
Beautiful Figures
Director - Soetkin Verstegen
Country - Belgium
Time - 4:00
Thoughts ripple over the pages of a personal notebook, kept during a stay at different science labs in Zürich. They float from one to another, like a mind map of unfinished ideas on memory, medical imaging, cells, and aging.
Holy Men
Director - David Lovric
Country - Croatia
Time - 10:46
A man emerges from a fog-covered lake and goes on a hunt for souls. A girl follows him through binoculars as he steals everything that is valuable to her. The chase across the ruins of a hidden realm forever changes her destiny.