The word ‘animate’ and ‘animation’ derive from the Latin verb animare, which means ‘to give life to’. And in the words of one of the all time greats in this genre, Norman McClaren, “animation is not the art of drawings that move, but rather, the art of movements that are drawn.”

If animation makes it technologically possible to visualize dreams and fantasies, and to dwell freely in a world away from the shackles of ‘reality’ and the fidelity to it in representations, where fairy tales and nightmares find natural statement, many films in the festival lived up to their mission. For, “the animated film creates a narrative space and visual environment radically different to the live-action version of the world”, and “the animated film enable the filmmakers to be more expressive and thus more subversive than is readily acknowledged. Almost consciously, animators, in being aware that they, and their works are marginalized and/or consigned to innocent, inappropriate or accidental audiences, use this apparently unguarded space to create films with surface pleasures and hidden depths” (Paul Wells, Understanding Animation)

In fact, the technological revolution in digital imaging has made it possible for the medium of film to return to one of its original projects at a higher plane – what pioneers like George Melies and early animators (the ‘trick’ filmmakers) were trying to do. Because animation makes it possible to ‘defy the laws of gravity, challenge our perceived view of space and time, and endow lifeless things with dynamic and vibrant properties”. The films that competed for the MAC India awards conveyed the vitality of a new media at the verge of a creative explosion.

The film that won the Grand Prize ‘Still I Rise’, a six-minute film by Umesh Shukla, was a movingly poetic and poignantly visual work of art that attempts to visualize the last dream of Joseph Merrick, the ‘elephant man’. It was a film that blended music and visuals to exorcise a dream to life. Deservedly, the film was also selected as the best independent production.

All over the world, animation is immediately associated with cartoons and commercials. In the competition section for the best TV and Theatrical Commercial categories, ‘Poga’ (a 40 seconds film directed by Cyrus Oshidar) won the prize. In the student category, Crossings (directed by Dann Yap Yeah Choong, from Malaysia) bagged the award.

The films from India, though they seem to have been caught between the worlds of 2D and 3D, had some striking offerings especially in the student and commercials categories.

The film that won the Special Jury Prize, Malli, a 3-minute film by Sharat Chandra Prasad, which dealt with the apparently drab theme of female illiteracy, was a film that tries turn the limits of the media into possibilities by working with words and simple movements. The simplicity and directness of the film was endearingly focused. Visually the film is conceived as a gradual pull out from the extreme close-ups of the linear patterns left by a thumb impression on which the denied dreams of a girl are encrypted.

Another such attempt was Pudavai (90 seconds) by Anitha Balachandran (Special Jury Prize for design). Pudavai refreshingly corrects the prevailing notions about the use of sound and music for animation films, and uses a Subramanya Bharati poem to capture the fantasies of a child that weaves its way through the designs in her mother’s saree.

The film by Vivekananda Ray Ghatak, My Salad Days (3.41 Mins) was notable in its wonderfully sparse use of movements and colour. Using only thin lines and light shades of earthy colours on a white surface, the film was able to evoke the emotions it wanted to convey in a beautiful way.

Many of the films in the TV Commercials Category (Diwali/Cyrus Oshidar and those in the ‘Condom Saves’ campaign), were hilarious.

Another interesting feature of the event was the screening of ten films that were the products of the Children’s Animation Workshop conducted by Toonz. Most of them seemed to be overly influenced by the popular ‘picture books’ in their theme and content, and more sadly, impelled by the need for a ‘message’ or a moral. Among them, ‘Uncle Spidey’ by Arun Parthasarathy, ‘Slippu’ by Ria Francis, and ‘Something is Amiss’ by Rahul Roy were films that attempted to break the moulds and visualize something of their own.

C.S. Venkiteswaran
venkitesh@eth.net