“I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter,” said French physicist and philosopher Blaise Pascal, who knew what he was talking about. Making a short film, especially an animated short, requires a lot of work, commitment, capacity for synthesis and, yes, talent. The Mexican directors competing at the Annecy International Animation Festival have all this and more invested in their shorts. They all tell stories, all the narratives are moving, and they grab your attention from the very first frame.
Their depth goes far beyond the tools used to build the images. A policeman urgently asking for help; a friar who doubts the role of his church; a grandmother and her granddaughter sharing sensations across time; a child facing a terrible fate; the presence of plastic in our blood; the consequences of a nuclear attack — all these topics reach the viewer through paper, charcoal, puppets, collages, and animation in 2D and 3D. It would be very difficult to find actors who could convey so many emotions in so few minutes, and cartoons, paper or virtual environments are as intimidating or as comfortable as any set. All the shorts are expressively realistic, but this reality is mixed with fantasy that can blatantly ignore the laws of physics.
Mexican animation in 2023 does not rest on its past glories. Today, these directors work at creating projects with their own identity. The competing films in Annecy will be immediately integrated into the great mosaic of global animation.
Puppet animation is a technique rarely explored in films about the Holocaust. Director Rita Basulto from Jalisco, winner of three Ariel awards from the Mexican Academy of Cinematography and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, embraces the challenge in her short Smoke, competing in the official section. Its gaunt wooden puppets and smoke drawn from the chimneys are as devastating as a documentary, in certain moments even more so. This is especially true when the little protagonist lets his imagination run free, the only thing unrestricted in that dreadful place.
Carne de Dios, another short in the official competition directed by Patricio Plaza, is a 2D animation that could be called a classic, but the narrative is risky and disruptive. A Franciscan friar in the Mexican colonial era, arrogant and authoritarian, is fed mushrooms by an old woman for therapeutic purposes after he collapses. The effects of the mushrooms – erotic and inappropriate for a man of the cloth – mix the beliefs of the conqueror and the conquered to chilling effect. The best thing about Carne de Dios is that its time indicators, such as means of transportation and communication, can easily be ignored to make it a current story; unfortunately, disdain for indigenous beliefs and restrictive religions are not limited to the past.
I Can’t Go on Like This by Aria Covamonas from Planet Earth is a miracle of recycling, and at the same time a unique project. Over images from the Library of Congress Online Catalog, Covamonas uses audio clips from films by directors ranging from Otto Preminger to Bernard Kowalski. The short, competing in the Off-Limits section, is an animated collage about the alienation of repetitive work and the threat of the atomic bomb, mixed with a dose of humor that makes it not only palatable but also enjoyable.
“K8” is a code word for Mexican police when they call to request support or backup during an operation. Miguel Anaya Borja, director of the short K8 competing in the Perspectives section, did not delegate these calls to an actor, but instead used actual calls from police officers who fell into ambushes by narcos and desperately asked for help. In counterpoint, the voice of a kindergarten teacher is heard calmly giving instructions to her students during a shooting. The animation, which seems to float and metamorphose from a charcoal drawing, augments the desperation in the policeman’s voice and the forced calm of the teacher.
Death and memories are not easy topics to discuss in an animated short. Director Amanda Woolrich adds to these deep topics a look at migration and forms of expression in her film Shifting (Trasiego), which is in competition in the Perspectives section. With all this, Woolrich establishes a remote conversation with her grandmother Fanny Rabel using original voices, letters, family photos and various techniques that include charcoal drawings and watercolors. The result is a dreamlike, reflective narrative that makes the viewer want to participate in it.
Blood Type: Plastic, in competition in the Commissioned Shorts section, was an assignment given by the Common Seas Foundation to Mexican animator Diego Huacuja and the Soze Agency. It takes barely 59 seconds of 2D animation to confront us with the terrifying certainty of the presence of plastic in our blood. Huacuja makes the subject accessible with constant movement, a palette of blue tones, and establishing a visual equivalent with other blood particles, while the voice of the great Stephen Fry adds gravitas to the film.
