The Peer-reviewed Open Access Online Journal for Animation History and Theory – ISSN 1930-1928
“This is firmly a documentary, but it’s stretching the boundaries of what documentaries can do….The frame that is used around Amin’s story is so fascinating: In a way, yes, it takes us to his memories and imaginations, but it’s also so honest because the filmmaking process itself is in the film” (see Kohn 2022). […]
Introduction In the last two decades, cinema scholars have noted the proliferation of documentary animation – a film genre that blends factual content with a fictional form and frequently aims to show ‘unrepresentable’ human experiences (Formenti 1; Honess Roe, Animated Documentary 22-26). I would like to acknowledge that this definition is quite broad, and it […]
Worldwide concern over the recovery of historical memory or the fight for human rights – including, of course, women’s rights – has led to an increase in the number of productions dedicated to this genre in animation. The animated documentary seems the perfect media for animated films based on historical figures or events, but also […]
It is time we addressed the elephant in the room: violence and discrimination against women, sex workers, LGBTQ+ persons and other gender minorities is prevalent across the world, entering our homes and our lives. It is time for strong social movements and campaigns to raise voices against it. I have been involved in community filmmaking […]
Animated documentary on the Holocaust, initially a controversial format, has become an established category. Over the past twenty to thirty years, many short, mid- and feature length films have been produced, including Miloš Zvěřina’s trilogy,[1] Orly Yadin and Sylvie Bringas’ Silence (1998), The Last Flight of Petr Ginz (2012) by Sandy Dickson and Churchill Roberts, […]
Is a digital image consisting of dots and lines and digital information, is it more real? Is a drawn image, talking with real sound, less true? Who can say? Who is to judge? (Ari Folman, 2008) We are practically drowning in the present; we are practically drowning in the past. (Nicholas Rombes 2009, p. 96) […]
The notion of “Holocaust animation” may seem paradoxical; how can a medium which, in the popular eye, is usually associated with comedy, play and fantasy be used to remember one of the 20th century’s most traumatic events? By examining the textural difference of animation to our lived world in texts such as Silence (Yadin and […]
When Exposure and Disguise Converge Since the 1990s there has been a rise in the use of documentary materials in film and visual arts, most commonly referred to as “The Documentary Turn” (Nash, 2004). The complexity of what defines realities and the questioning of epistemological limits is part of the contemporary fascination with the documentary. […]
This paper will look at the term which Chris Landreth has coined for the way in which animation can depict internal realities; psychorealism. The term will be re-interpreted by the author and applied to her recent work. The paper will look at the challenges of working with subjective brain states and the ways in which the information collected can be verified. The paper will show how by dislocating elements of realism and re-placing them into the realm of animation psychorealism allows the audience to engage with the material differently.
Reality is what we take to be true. What we take true is what we believe. What we believe is based upon our perceptions. What we perceive depends upon what we look for. What we look for depends upon what we think. What we think depends upon what we perceive. What we perceive determines what […]