Rockets soar and sparks fly in Andrea Love’s animated tribute to a favorite New Year’s Eve tradition. In case you can’t make it to a live event this year, sit back and celebrate the launch into 2025 with the artist’s mesmerizing pyrotechnic show.

Love (previously) is known for her tender stop-motion portrayals of daily routines in her Cooking with Wool series, along with myriad felted scenarios for clients like Loewe, Michael’s, Hermès, and Netflix. Learn more about her work on her website, and explore all of her videos on YouTube.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Ring in the New Year with Andrea Love’s Stop-Motion Felted Wool Pyrotechnics appeared first on Colossal.

What if succulents sprouted in squiggles? Or cacti turned orange and floated to the sky like balloons?

An imaginative animation by Hiroshi Takagishi pushes botanical specimens and their potential evolution to peculiar extremes. Inspired by contradictions and irregularities in nature, “Odd” is a digitally crafted film that envisions the ways various specimens could morph from one state to another. As cacti wiggle and wobble or burst into dainty green petals, their recognizable forms become strange and surreal.

Find more from Takagishi on Vimeo.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article A Bizarre Animation Imagines Botanical Growth Gone Awry appeared first on Colossal.

How does jealousy snuff out creativity? A stop-motion film written and directed by Ainslie Henderson (previously) follows three furry, felted creatures struggling with each other’s success.

“Shackle” centers on the gremlin-like trio as they conjure the forest’s magic to make music. As pinecones spin like a top, dreamy sounds emerge, and slowly, the creatures add other objects to the woodland symphony. Shape-shifting sticks offer a rhythmic line, while autumn leaves provide a soothing melody.

When one envious character tries to steal the unusual instruments for himself, though, a cloud of darkness reveals that greed is incompatible with art.

The short film is a BAFTA nominee and was recognized as the Best British Film at the London International Animation Festival in 2022. Henderson has also been awarded numerous Vimeo honors for his work, which you can watch on the platform.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article A Trio of Woodland Sprites Vie for Creative Control in an Ethereal Stop-Motion Animation appeared first on Colossal.

When a mother arrives home with her young son to find her father in the kitchen, the simple act of preparing dinner prompts her to confront her childhood and cultural identity. As her father prepares spring rolls, a traditional Vietnamese meal, both are challenged to find common ground. And what ultimately brings them together is the youngest generation’s creative fusion.

“Spring Roll Dream” is a stop-motion short film directed and animated by Mai Vu while she was enrolled at the National Film and Television School in Buckinghamshire, England. The narrative follows a single mother named Linh, who has forged a life for her family in the U.S. But when her father visits from Vietnam, a statement says, “Linh is confronted with the past and culture she left behind and the question of where it belongs in her family’s new life.”

The figures, scenes, and foodstuffs emerge from sculpted paper, and the film’s dialogue captures bilingual interactions that shift between generations. Interiors glow in the evening light and uncanny happenings induce Linh to reconsider her relationship with her heritage.

“Spring Roll Dream” took home the Lights on Women Award at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. Watch now on Vimeo.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Three Generations Grow Closer Over Traditional Vietnamese Cuisine in ‘Spring Roll Dream’ appeared first on Colossal.

When a brave black cat’s world is turned upside down after a massive flood, everything feels uncertain. Fortunately, when the feline teams up with a capybara, a lemur, a bird, and a dog navigating a boat in search of dry land, the eclectic group relies on their unlikely friendships and a mix of courage, trust, and wits to survive in their newly aquatic world.

Flow is a new feature-length animated movie directed by Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis, co-written by Zilbalodis and producer Matīss Kaža. Focusing entirely on the animals’ movements, dramatic angles, and emphatic lighting effects, the film entirely foregoes dialogue for stirring music and emotive meows, barks, and purrs.

Notable for being rendered entirely in open-source software Blender, a tool used for making 3D graphics that has historically been employed for video game design, Flow taps into the possibilities of world-building. Critics liken the dreamy settings to an open-world video game, which as opposed to play that’s more structured or linear, encourages exploration and the joy of discovery.

Flow uses non-photorealistic imagery—also known as NPR, a computer graphics technique for expressing the aesthetics of other mediums, such as painting or drawing—to create otherworldly landscapes and interactions. Merging fantastical elements with accurate animal movements, the film strikes a remarkable balance between the real and the unreal.

Flow was selected to premiere in the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes Film Festival in May, and it also screened at this year’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival, where it won three awards. Whet your appetite with the trailer, and see the film in select theaters now.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article ‘Flow’ Follows a Courageous Black Cat Navigating a World Suddenly Plunged Underwater appeared first on Colossal.

In an isolated home in the tiny, prairie hamlet of Hairy Hill, Alberta, a young girl named Ethel lives with her three younger siblings. She carries the burden of caregiver as the children navigate a dysfunctional relationship with their mother, who cryptically transforms into a bird and flies away. Ethel is then faced with sustaining their livelihood on her own.

Director Daniel Gies co-wrote “Return to Hairy Hill” with Emily Paige, with whom he also co-founded Montréal-based studio E.D. Films. The short is based on the true story of a woman named Marie-Anne Ethel Garnier—Gies’s grandmother—who was born in Hairy Hill in 1940.

Rendered in black-and-white, otherworldly paper figures traverse a dreamlike landscape at the foot of a mountain range as winter approaches.

“Paper was always a key element used throughout the story to convey an impermanence and fragility of the human characters that contrasts with the organic, painterly animals and environments,” the studio says. Gies and Paige achieved the analog effect by using three-dimensional computer graphics to create the impression of stop-motion puppets.

The studio describes the project as “a haunting and deeply personal tribute to family folklore,” drawing on stories of what it’s like to live in remote and often harsh environments. As Ethel watches her siblings transmogrify into woodland creatures, she must carefully consider whether she will join them in her own metamorphosis or defy fate and venture into an entirely new life.

Real paper puppets served as models for the evocative characters, and the effects of light and shadow emphasize the fraught relationship between the known and unknown. Enmeshing a variety of styles, the animation includes three-dimensional painterly forests, sculptural details, and classic, two-dimensional techniques.

Check out E.D. Films’ website for a behind-the-scenes look at the process, and follow the studio on Vimeo.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article ‘Return to Hairy Hill’ Hauntingly Renders Family Lore in Black-and-White Animation appeared first on Colossal.

If you were to find yourself running out of fuel while flying above the arid Nullarbor Plain in southwestern Australia, don’t panic. You might have the opportunity to meet Kate, Greg, and their dog Holly.

The pair are the sole occupants of Forrest, a former railway town that’s home to an emergency airport, which serves as an essential stop for planes needing to fill up mid-journey. Surrounded by miles of desert, Kate and Greg manage the remote property and see few visitors, although they’re always prepared for a traveler to spend the night.

Director and producer Yannick Jamey dropped in on the duo for “The Big Wait,” a poetic and dryly humorous documentary about life on the Australian plain.

Set to “Heaven and Paradise” by Don Julian and The Meadowlarks, the short film captures Kate and Greg’s routine. They change sheets and dust the mantles of the six cottages on site, cut the lawns, and spray herbicides on the runway to prevent weeds from springing through the blacktop and cracking the pavement.

“Even though today we’ve had no visitors from outside,” Greg says early in the film, “we are all the time trying to make sure that all the beds are available, everything is shiny and nice.” He continues:

And that we, when guests arrive, can put all the behind-the-scenes stuff away from us, and when you finally get there, you can just put on your beautiful smile to the guests and say, ‘Where were you? We were waiting for you!’

Jamey punctuates vast, aerial shots with tight, close-ups to juxtapose the immense geographic isolation with intimate storytelling. Surreal and at times absurd, “The Big Wait” glimpses an unassuming paradise fit for two but always ready for the next arrival.

“The Big Wait” just made the festival circuit, and Jamey is working on several short and feature-length films at the moment. Follow his latest projects on Vimeo.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article In ‘The Big Wait,’ a Couple Readies a Remote Australian Town for Visitors Who Might Never Arrive appeared first on Colossal.

Given that mosaic typically requires a cement base to secure the individual fragments, it’s unusual to find the medium in stop-motion animation, a technique requiring that components move a microscopic distance in each frame.

But during a 10-day residency in Tarusa, Russia, a group of artists working with the collaborative Invisible Friends decided to try their hands at the unconventional approach. The result? “The sky has no edge,” a poetic narrative about looking up that’s crafted almost entirely from mosaic.

Conceived in five days and filmed in the same amount of time, the dreamlike animation flows through a patchwork of scenes devised by individual artists, all of which are then stitched together. There’s a crow perched on a powerline that promptly chomps a fly, red and orange fireworks bursting in the distance, and a bee buzzing high above a train as it races by.

To create the film, artist Ilya Yudovich concocted a plasticine mixture with sand and other materials. The resulting substance retained the texture and consistency of cement without hardening. Invisible Friends shares an in-depth look behind the scenes on its website and adds:

The animation process was highly labor-intensive. In some instances, it resembled cut-out animation, with a large pre-prepared mosaic picture being moved beneath the camera, undergoing slight alterations. At times, it involved intricate work with the entire picture – a form of total animation. Each frame required meticulous attention to detail, as if reconstructing the mosaic anew.

There’s a helpful translation of the film’s narrative on YouTube, but you can find more experimental techniques and collaborations from Invisible Friends on Vimeo.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article A Mosaic Storyline Looks to the Sky in a Poetic Stop-Motion Animation appeared first on Colossal.

From a makeshift bike ramp to an uphill struggle with a lawn mower, the scenes in Titus Kaphar’s oil paintings are simultaneously familiar and personal. Drawing on memories, he contemplates the meaning of family, community, loss, grief, and everyday life in working-class America.

These works, shown in a gallery setting for the first time at Gagosian, were made for the artist’s semi-autobiographical, debut film, Exhibiting Forgiveness, which screened at Sundance earlier this year and comprises the centerpiece of the presentation.

Featuring André Holland (Moonlight and Passing) alongside Andra Day and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, the film was written and directed by Kaphar and follows the story of an accomplished painter whose life is upended by an unexpected reunion with his estranged father.

Springing “from the same personal, emotional and psychological well” that provides the source for all of his work, Kaphar portrays neighborhood houses, figures, and personal objects that transport us to both the artist’s childhood and the universal experiences associated with coming of age.

In “So vulnerable,” for example, two of the three figures scaling a fence have been rubbed out, as if time or unknown events have erased all but their ghostly impressions. In “I hear you in my head,” a figure cutting the lawn has been removed from the canvas altogether, leaving only a void.

Exhibiting Forgiveness continues through November 2 at Gagosian Beverly Hills, and the film is slated for release in theaters nationwide on October 18. Find more on the artist’s website.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Titus Kaphar Paints Memories, Family, and Grief into ‘Exhibiting Forgiveness’ appeared first on Colossal.

If two MTA cars collided, the result would be catastrophic. But that’s not so in the latest animation from Argentinian director Fernando Livschitz.

Like his previous films that twist the mundane into the bizarre, “Pillow Fight” reimagines ordinary fixtures of the urban landscape as billowing cushions. Yellow taxis, an elevated walkway, and even buildings get an uncanny, padded upgrade as they crash into one another to harmless effect.

Livschitz helms Black Sheep Studio, and you can watch more of his films on Vimeo.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article In “Pillow Fight,” Disasters Get a Soft Landing appeared first on Colossal.