ANIMATIONWorld — October 7, 2016
On the Edge: Experimental Shorts at OIAF 2016

All animation is experimental, right? Well, some projects push that experimentation more than others, and this year’s 40th anniversary edition of the Ottawa International Film Festival had a fantastic lineup of experimental and abstract films that leapt off the screen to lodge themselves inside our minds.

The year’s Award for Best Experimental or Abstract Animation went to 2015’s Datum Point, by Japan-born, Montreal-based filmmaker Ryo Orikasa, with the jury commenting, “Loved the texture. The granularity of the sound and medium had a visceral quality. Poetic beauty and integration of text, texture and sound. It was mysterious. I don’t know what it was…but I was moved.”

Employing clay animation, the nearly seven-minute-long Datum Point was a big hit with OIAF audiences as well, producing cheers and stomps after its screening on Opening Night, and generating much buzz among festival-goers in the days leading up to the awards. The project was inspired by Japanese modern poet Yoshiro Ishihara, who is now remembered as a “poet of silence,” and once commented, “A poem is an impulse to resist writing.” According to Orikasa, this film is an attempt to seek out the landscape from his poem. The film is not yet available online, but you can watch Orikasa’s 2015 short, Writings fly away, on Vimeo. (Read full story…)