Film Tag: Animation

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Something Left, Something Taken

On their way to a forensics lecture, a young couple hitch a ride with a stranger who they slowly discover is none other than the Zodiac Killer — the infamous serial killer who has never been caught. As he veers off the highway to take a “shortcut” through the woods, they decide to leave evidence for the police. An award-winning dark comedy from the creators of last year’s Electric Car.
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The Incident at Tower 37

A guard at a futuristic water tower intercepts a covert band of amphibian creatures trying to destroy the tower to rehydrate their planet.
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Journey to Cape Verde

An animated “carnet du voyage,” or journey diary, the film recounts the artist’s sixty-day-long trek through Cape Verde. With no mobile phone, no watch, no plans for what comes next, and only the bare essentials in his backpack, our traveler explores mountains, villages, the sea, a talking tortoise, goats, music, people — and an essential part of himself.
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The Lost Thing

A boy encounters a strange creature on a beach and decides to find a home for it in a world where everyone believes there are far more important things to think about. This beautifully animated film comes from Passion Pictures, producers of past NYICFF favorites City of Paradise and Dog Who Was a Cat Inside.
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The Bellies

Fat capitalists dine on genetically altered snails in this nightmarish tales of gluttony and greed.
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Tales of the Night 3D

NYICFF welcomes renowned animator Michel Ocelot (Kirikou and the Sorceress, Azur & Asmar) to present his newest film. Tales of the Night is Ocelot’s first foray into 3D animation and extends the shadow puppet style of his Princes and Princesses into the third dimension, with silhouetted characters set off against exquisitely detailed backgrounds bursting with color and kaleidoscopic patterns like a Day-Glo diorama. The film weaves together six exotic fables each unfolding in a unique locale, from Tibet, to medieval Europe, an Aztec kingdom, the African plains, and even the Caribbean Land of the Dead. In Ocelot’s storytelling, history blends with fairytale as viewers are whisked off to enchanted lands full of dragons, sorcerers, werewolves, captive princesses, and enormous talking bees – and each fable ends with its own ironic twist.
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Yellow Submarine

An icon of psychedelic pop culture, Yellow Submarine is a colorful musical spectacle and an exhilaratingly joyful cinematic experience for all ages — filled with visual invention, optical illusions, word play, and glorious, glorious music. Once upon a time…or maybe twice…there was an unearthly paradise called Pepperland, 80,000 leagues under the sea it lay, a place where beauty, happiness, and music reigned supreme. But this peaceful harmony is shattered when the Blue Meanies invade with their army of storm bloopers, apple bonkers, snapping turtle turks, and the menacing flying glove in an attempt to stop the music and drain Pepperland of all color and hope. Now it’s The Beatles to the rescue, as our animated heroes team up with Young Fred and the Nowhere Man and journey across seven seas to free Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, make peace with the Meanies, and restore music, color, and love to the world. But beyond all the music and whimsy, Yellow Submarine is a landmark in animation, with Heinz Edelmann’s inspired art direction conjuring up a non-stop parade of wildly different styles and techniques. From the paper-doll residents of Pepperland, to the tinted photography of the soot covered roofs and smokestacks of Liverpool, the menagerie of fanciful characters in the Sea of Monsters, the kaleidoscopic color-splashed rotoscoping of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, the vertigo inducing op-art of the Sea of Holes, and the triumphant euphony of the It’s All Too Much finale, the film is simply a joy.
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Children Who Chase Lost Voices From Deep Below

Makoto Shinkai is perhaps the world’s finest animator and his brilliant new feature delivers frame after frame of jaw-dropping photorealistic splendor: skyscapes of unspeakable majesty, a butterfly on a twig, a blade of grass — all are rendered with such astounding delicacy and precision that you mourn their passing once the image has left the screen. The story is a modern-day Orpheus tale with a sci-fi twist that pays tribute to the great works of Hayao Miyazaki — especially Princess Mononoke — with its demonic spirit-gods and magnificent forest creatures. Asuna spends her afternoons alone in the mountains, using her crystal radio to listen to haunting songs from somewhere far away. One afternoon, a wild bear-like creature attacks and Asuna is saved by Shun, a boy with strange powers who comes from a mythical underworld beneath the Earth that is a gateway to the afterlife. When Asuna returns the next day to find him gone, she decides to leave the world of the living behind and follow him.
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Saari

Stunning colors, character design, and art direction show influences of Miró in this Spanish series about the creative adventures of a group of friends living together on the animated island Saari.
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How to Lose Weight in 60 Seconds

From fad diets to stomach staples, a whirlwind minute road test of 12 approaches to weight loss. Do not try this at home.
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Let’s Make Out

From the creator of last year’s Chicken Cowboy, a musical tribute to the innocent joys of smooching and booty-shaking.
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Murphy’s Shorts

A chubby kid on a diving board keeps bouncing higher and higher, as sister, dad, and baby watch from below with growing anticipation and concern.
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Floyd the Android

An inquisitive android can’t seem to keep his head on straight in this playful short on teleportation.
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Keenan at Sea

This adorable, hummable tune from NY acoustic pop group The Girls is the theme song for the 2012 festival! “A salty sea and a boat for three as we sail past the coral reef…we wave goodbye to the sandy beach far away…la la la la!”
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Marcel the Shell with the Shoes On

An up-close and personal interview with internet video star Marcel, a tiny shell with one eyeball, two shoes, and a really great personality!
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Backwards

A love story so backwards, it has to be told in reverse.
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Book Girl and Cabinet Girl

A sweet and tender story of friendship, jealousy, and love. Book Girl and Cabinet Girl meet and become friends. But then Scissors Boy comes along and cuts them apart.
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Ormie

Pig see cookie. Pig want cookie. But the cookies are frustratingly out of reach in glass jar on top of the fridge, just beyond his grasp… or are they? With inventiveness and relentless determination, Ormie employs Wile E. Coyote-type contraptions and half-baked plans in a series of increasingly desperate attempts to attain the sweet objects of his obsession.
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Extinction of the Sabertooth House Cat

Though scientists have conjectured, none could truly say what caused the demise of the Sabertooth House Cat. But not this hard-hitting documentary reveals startling new evidence to detail the dramatic last moments of one of Earth’s littlest known creatures.
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Bottle

This transoceanic love story, animated in stop motion on the beach, forest, and undersea, details a long distance friendship that blossoms between a sandman and a snowwoman who exchange gifts via a bottle in the water. But sand and snow cannot withstand water, so how can the two hope to be together?
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Precise Peter

An obsessive compulsive dad is excited about introducing his little boy to joys of al fresco dining. The fish is ready, the table is set, the sun is shining, all seems perfect — but junior can’t quite get with the program.
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Metro

A young girl chases a mysterious fox through a secret door and into a subterranean wonderland to retrieve her stolen train ticket.
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The Cow Who Wanted to Be a Hamburger

The latest film from NYICFF’s favorite hometown hero, Bill Plympton is a factory farming fable about the power of advertising, the meaning of life, and ultimately the test of a mother’s love.
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(Notes On) Biology

Probably the most exciting lesson on etoecology you’ll ever receive combines rotoscoping and stop-motion animation to literally illustrate what really goes on during biology class (parents, look away).
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The Girl and the Fox

An enemy becomes a friend as a young girl has a life-and-death encounter with a snow fox at dusk in the frozen forest.
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Benigni

A lonesome xylophone player discovers a fleshy lump growing under his arm. But when he attempts to remove it, the tumor displays some unconventional qualities.
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Swimming Pool

In a closed swimming pool in the middle of a big city, two outcasts share a night-time swim. But will they be willing to reveal their secrets?
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Tigers and Tattoos

Maj lives with her uncle Sonny and loves to sit with him when he “draws” on the tough women and hard-boiled men who frequent his tattoo shop. One day, a particularly large and scary customer dozes off and Maj ends up tattooing all over his huge back with her childish designs. Fearing the man’s rage, Sonny and Maj make a hasty escape on Sonny’s motorcycle — the start of an exciting adventure where they discover a magic forest filled with fairies and sprites, a circus mother and her son, and a man-eating tiger named Brutalis.
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A Cat in Paris

NYICFF is thrilled to present the US Premiere of the brilliant new feature from Folimage, the animation studio behind Mia & the Migoo and Raining Cats and Frogs. A Cat in Paris is a beautifully hand-drawn caper set in the shadow-drenched alleyways of Paris. Dino is a pet cat that leads a double life. By day he lives with Zoe, a little mute girl whose mother, Jeanne, is a detective in the Parisian police force. But at night he sneaks out the window to work with Nico — a slinky cat-burglar with a big heart, whose fluid movements are poetry in motion — as he evades captors and slips and swishes from rooftop to rooftop across the Paris skyline. The cat’s two worlds collide when young Zoe decides to follow Dino on his nocturnal adventures — and falls into the hands of Victor Costa, a blustery gangster planning the theft of a rare statue. Now cat and cat burglar must team up to save Zoe from the bumbling thieves, leading to a thrilling acrobatic finale on top of Notre Dame. A Cat in Paris is a warm and richly humorous love letter to classic noir films and the stylized wit of the Pink Panther cartoons — and Dino, the literal cat burglar, manages to steal the show with little more than a subtle swish of the tail and quiet mew.
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Lotte and the Moonstone Secret

Lotte is back! The beloved girl-dog returns in this utterly charming follow-up to NYICFF 2008 audience favorite Lotte from Gadgetville. The townspeople of Gadgetville are as wacky as ever — still creating kooky contraptions and having cheery adventures. While reminiscing about a past adventure, Lotte’s uncle Klaus tells the story of how he and his friends, Fred and Ville, came to find three magical stones in a hidden temple. Now all Lotte wants to do is unlock the secret of their power – so she convinces her uncle to go on a trip to find his old buddies and piece together the mystery. However, what Lotte and Uncle Klaus don’t know is that they are being followed by two Moon Rabbits — whose only hope of getting back home is locked up in those very same stones! A gentle and quirky journey filled with a cast of silly characters including a lovesick drummer and a man who sleeps all day in order to dream, Lotte and the Moonstone Secret is richly rendered, warm-hearted, good-natured fun for audiences of all ages. Featuring original songs by Latvian pop group Brainstorm! (What, you haven’t heard of them?!)
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