

In this non-narrative animated film inspired by composer François Couperin's harpsichord composition "Barricades mystérieuses," Jacques Drouin explores a whole new way of using the pinscreen to create animated images. He pivots the screen and uses low-angled light to capture images in high relief. The result is like a sculpture whose expertly modelled forms are revealed through film. A film without words.


In this non-narrative animated film inspired by composer François Couperin's harpsichord composition "Barricades mystérieuses," Jacques Drouin explores a whole new way of using the pinscreen to create animated images. He pivots the screen and uses low-angled light to capture images in high relief. The result is like a sculpture whose expertly modelled forms are revealed through film. A film without words.
2004-01-01
7
7.2Short film to a song of love lost and rediscovered, a woman sees and undergoes surreal transformations. Her lover's face melts off, she dons a dress from the shadow of a bell and becomes a dandelion, ants crawl out of a hand and become Frenchmen riding bicycles. Not to mention the turtles with faces on their backs that collide to form a ballerina, or the bizarre baseball game.
6.9On the planet Gandahar where peace reigns and poverty is unknown, this utopian lifestyle is upset by reports of people at the outlying frontiers being turned to stone. Sylvain is sent to investigate this mysterious threat.
7.0Across different eras, a poor family, an anxious developer and a fed-up landlady become tied to the same mysterious house in this animated dark comedy.
6.5The people of Hamelin, overrun with rats, offer a bag of gold to anyone who can get rid of the rats. A piper offers to do the job, and successfully lures the rats into a mirage of cheese, which disappears. The citizens, disappointed that all he did was play a tune, offer only pocket change. The piper, angered, plays a new tune that has all the children of the city follow him, even the new twins the stork is preparing to deliver.
7.3While looking for her cat, a young woman and some kids find an abandoned building where strange things happen and the rules of physics don't always apply. Part of the Animatrix collection of animated shorts set in the Matrix universe.
7.0GrandPat travels through alternate dimensions and timelines to get home.
6.5A white dropout struggles to become a cartoonist and filmmaker, drawing inspiration from the harsh, gritty world around him. Still sharing his rundown apartment with his middle-aged parents, an oafish slob of an Italian father and a ditzy nutcase of a Jewish mother, he's ridiculed and looked down upon by his friends, hypocrites who run with violent gangs and the Italian Mafia, and a shallow Black girl who makes her living downtown with the pimps and pushers. The cartoonist gets a chance to pitch a film idea to a movie mogul, but the story proves too outrageous: a far-future Earth, depleted by war and pollution, where a mutant antihero challenges and kills God.
6.6The human resistance works to convert a sentinel to their side. Part of the Animatrix collection of animated shorts set in the Matrix universe.
6.6Although not the first feature-length animated film, as is sometimes thought, it was the first cartoon to feature a character with an appealing personality. The appearance of a true character distinguished it from earlier animated "trick films", such as those of Blackton and Cohl, and makes it the predecessor to later popular cartoons such as those by Walt Disney. The film was also the first to be created using keyframe animation.
7.4After a hurricane levels his city, a young man wanders into a mysterious library where books literally come to life. This film won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film in 2012.
8.1On an idyllic beach in the Pacific Northwest, curiosity gets the better of a young raccoon whose frustrated parent attempts to keep them both safe.
6.3The librarian of the town of New Penzance introduces six animated segments illustrating Suzy's favorite books.
6.8Cis and Duo discuss leaving the real world while during a samurai sword fight. Part of the Animatrix collection of animated shorts set in the Matrix universe.
6.0When ancient dark magic falls into sinister hands and unleashes ages of suffering onto mankind, a group of heroes from different eras and cultures must band together in order to defeat it at all costs.
6.7The story of Prince Hal who sets out to avenge his dead father against the city's rivals, the Zeriths, little knowing it was his wicked uncle Nezo who is the real killer, with his own designs on the throne.
7.3Groot discovers a miniature civilization that believes the seemingly enormous tree toddler is the hero they’ve been waiting for.
6.7An orphaned boy raised by underground creatures called Boxtrolls comes up from the sewers and out of his box to save his family and the town from the evil exterminator, Archibald Snatcher.
7.1Groot investigates a spooky noise that’s been haunting the Quadrant, which leads to an intense dance off.
6.2Ella Blake, a stop-motion animator struggling to control her demons after the loss of her overbearing mother, embarks upon the creation of a film that becomes the battleground for her sanity. As Ella’s mind starts to fracture, the characters in her project take on a life of their own.
7.0The assassin Deathstroke tries to save his family from the wrath of H.I.V.E. and the murderous Jackal.
6.0An animated film based on one of the renku (collaborative linked poems) in the 1684 collection of the same name by the 17th-century Japanese poet Bashō. The creation of the film followed the traditional collaborative nature of the source material – the visuals for each of the 36 stanzas were independently created by 35 different animators. As well as many Japanese animators, Kawamoto assembled leading names in animation from across the world. Each animator was asked to contribute at least 30 seconds to illustrate their stanza, and most of the sequences are under a minute (Yuriy Norshteyn's, though, is nearly two minutes long).
6.5In this short, an artist creates a painting of the landscape he sees, then finds he can literally climb into the picture to see the fantastic world inside.
5.7This short animated film follows Antoine, a young boy fascinated by his mysterious neighbour, a man rumoured to have once been a big game hunter. Antoine is eager to learn about hunting, but the lesson he learns from the wise older man is not at all what he had expected: Antoine is left with a profound reverence for life.
6.3When a man becomes blind, his life is all turned around. He can only use his touch to get around in his house. The objects become enemies. But an angel is looking over him.
7.0Animated short film made in three parts on the pin screen by Alexeieff-Parker. With these three exercises, director Jacques Drouin experiments with the play of light and shadow alone. Original, this experience presents us with a reality that is not truncated although it may appear as follows: the faculty of wonder will be able to create the necessary link between everyday life and the way it was rendered.
6.3The story of a young boy and his father, both of whom are enlisted to fight in the war. The boy's pride soon turns to fear as the bullets whistle overhead. His father takes his place and is immediately shot and killed. Horrified, the boy understands that war is not a game.
7.0The forest can be full of scary creatures, Eliot’s parents caution, but the mystery might be too tempting for a kid who doesn’t want to go to bed.
0.0This documentary is a portrait of the animator of Le Paysagiste, from his childhood in Eastern Quebec to his career at the NFB. Trained at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), Drouin became in some ways the heir to Alexandre Alexeïeff when he began working with the Alexeïeff-Parker pinhole screen in 1974. Recounting his relationship with the filmmaker and inventor, coming back with lucidity and precision on the whole of his own filmography, Jacques Drouin delivers here a precious testimony on creation. Enriched with numerous excerpts and unpublished images from the filmmaker's personal archives, Jacques Drouin en relief is both the adventure of a lifetime and a valuable lesson in cinema.
8.0This abstract yet compelling philosophical tale uses the Alexeïeff-Parker pinscreen as a metaphor for the particles that make up the universe. Through 4 tableaux that explore her character’s thoughts, filmmaker Michèle Lemieux takes a look at the profound reflections of this everyman, whose questions are part of humanity’s eternal quest for meaning.
0.0Utilising the Alexeïeff-Parker pinscreen technique, this visually poetic non-narrative film revisits Diego Vélasquez’s 1652 portrait of Queen Mariana of Austria with genuine feeling.
0.0Everyone in Ponyville forgot Pinkie Pie pony's birthday. Uh-oh! Watch the story unfold as the ponies quickly plan a party! Will they surprise Pinkie Pie?
4.7Dieters grandma knew it from the start. This guy will be special one. She should be right. Even as a child Dieter shows an enormous power when it is necessary to enforce his will. He quickly learn that you can not only impress the girls, but also make a lot of money as a musician. He understands that the success is mainly a question of the postage costs and a healthy liver. That you may not always tell the truth, but you should always have something lying on the high edge.
7.1In the midst of societal conflict in the futuristic city of Metropolis, Kenichi and his uncle Shunsaku Ban set out to uncover the mystery behind the first human-like robot, Tima.
0.0A funny puppet show about the family of the righteous Noah and disagreements while traveling on the ark.
0.0A little girl who is allergic to almost everything is forced to live alone isolated from the outside world. When a small lemur brought from Madagascar to an illegal market in Mexico escapes and finds a way to the little girl's room, a strange friendship is formed.
6.6In a far-future time ruled by the supernatural, a young girl requests the help of a vampire hunter to kill the vampire who has bitten her and thus prevent her from becoming a vampire herself.
7.0In this animated short, a terrible curse deprives Balthasar's kingdom of its stories. Taking the unicorn's horn back into The Belly of the Earth is the solution. Poppety will lead an expedition, by chance uncovering a hitherto closely guarded family secret.
5.6A girl named Susie goes to an amusement park and are greeted by a couple of costumed tour guides, The Banana Splits who take her on a tour of the park. In another realm a witch sees Susie and wants to make her a witch so she lures her into her realm. The Splits follow her and discover a world of magic. They try to rescue Susie from the witch and are aided by a couple of bickering wizards, Hocus and Pocus.