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By Chris Shackleton on

BAF 2012 student selection: A review

Screening in competition at the Festival are a series of films conceived and developed by student bodies from around the globe.

These student films offer a taster of work made by new sensations bursting into the animation industry and of the type of animation that we will hopefully see much more of in the near future.


Buy Buy Baby, Gervais Merryweather

Taking inspiration from the screwball comedies and Merry Melodies of early Hollywood, Gervais Merryweather’s Buy Buy Baby sees pent-up and frustrated stock broker Frederick Finklesworth II forced to take care of his infant daughter Betty. Havoc ensues when Betty escapes his clutches and runs riot on the Stock Exchange causing Wall Street to collapse into anarchy and her father to collapse into a ball of nerves.

Wonderfully silly, Merryweather has a great grasp on humour and storytelling while displaying a strong and varied grip on 2D animation.


Drwal, Pawel Debski

Pawel Debski’s Drwal is a sombre piece made with muted Autumnal hues and which starts with the image of a father about to drop his young son from the top of a cliff. Steadily we piece together what led to this situation as the man, a lumberjack, grows insane after chopping down a special tree deep in the heart of the forest.

Debski’s characterisations are pitch perfect and both the son and the father exude bundles of warmth that the viewer cannot help but respond to as the story goes from innocent joy to dark and haunting drama.


Bite of the Tail, Song E Kim

Bite of the Tail by Song E Kim uses a mix of low-fi paper drawings and 2D computer animation techniques to tell the story of a couple in the infancy of their marriage.

While the wife feels increasingly frustrated by the mundanity of her stay-at-home life and by stomach pains that her doctor can’t seem to diagnose, her husband escapes from his office job to catch a snake in a deserted lot. Shades of the Mumblecore movement abound in the film’s characterisations and low-fi techniques.


Aux Gambettes Gourmandes, Clemence Boucherau

Clemence Bouchereau’s Aux Gambettes Gourmandes links sexuality and food in a clever use of 2D animation. A man and a woman sit down to dinner and as they eat and talk their meal twists and turns into several different suggestive shapes which lays bare the desire between the two that has so far gone unspoken. A poetic visualisation of human feeling and eroticism.

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