The first of the six Untold Tales films.
Hold Tight explores the importance of Carnival across the UK and how its celebrations provide an important lifeline to heritage and identity for younger generations of the Black Caribbean diaspora in Britain. It is a journey into the feeling of belonging, through the rituals of Carnival attendance and the power of bass.
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You can watch the film here:
Hold Tight – https://vimeo.com/297039237
Documentary animator Ng’endo Mukii on Facebook uses animation to challenge hegemonic representation.
She has written on and spoken about her use of animation to document and explore personal histories and identity, on ideals of beauty, and on the problematic representation of indigenous people through traditional documentary.
Mukii recently published a follow up to this final talk in Bright Magazine, in an article titled: National Geographic’s Photography Erased People. It’s Too Late For An Apology.
Mukii’s work rose to international attention with Yellow Fever, her award-winning graduation film, made at the Royal College of Art in London, which you can watch below.
A series of animated shorts illustrating young people’s perspectives of living as refugees and asylum seekers. Part of the BBC Two Learning Zone, this series won a Children’s BAFTA in 2012.
Produced by Mosaic Films in London, UK.
Director: Andy Glynne
Animation Directors: Salvador Maldonado, Karl Hammond, Tom Senior and Jonathan Topf
A hybrid film featuring live action alongside animated documentary, this is the story of Ryszard Kapuscinski, a journalist covering independence movements throughout Africa in the 1970’s.
The animation and style is sublime, building on the style associated with ‘Waltz with Bashir’.
We are not sure when this film will be completed – but we anticipate its release!
You can read the review here:
You can visit the website here:
This animated oil-on-glass and live action documentary is centered on the campaign in Sierra Leone to get a 30% quota of women in parliament. Titles in the film explain that women took a key role in negotiating the peace process at the end of an 11 year civil war, however since then female politicians have had to deal with intimidation and misogyny as they navigate the political sidelines.
Animated Documentary reported on ‘30%’ in the early stages of production back in February 2012 and again once the film was finished and publicised by The Guardian in January 2013. And we liked it so much we felt it was worth reviewing too.
The animated sequences possess a luscious mixture of figurative and abstract imagery found most commonly in impressionism. Paint swims across the screen, smudging and slipping its sensual gloopy material around our vision with all the vibrancy of the region it refers to.
The metamorphic nature of the animated medium lends itself to turbulent tonal changes that take place in the opening sequence. The viewer zips though a busy Sierra Leone street into a viscous black void where we pass burning cars, violent gestures and feel the echoes of civil war. These melting edits are brought to great effect when combined with snappy sound design.
Following visual and audio darkness the screen literally swirls into the shape of Dr. Bernadette Lahai, one of the key political figures pushing forward the 30% quota bill. The rotoscoped image dissolves into live action. My feeling is that several of the video sequences possess considerably less flair than their animated counterparts. Such an uneven aesthetic could be said to threaten the impact of the short; but here it might be worth considering how disorientating an entirely rotoscoped 10 minute short could have been. Instead animation is reserved for storytelling and live action covers the communication of important details.
This film is fruitful both in its visuals and content. As a documentary the short conveys an under-reported theme in an engaging manor, while the animated sections are sumptuous in their appeal. At Animated Documentary we are always pleased to see such formal beauty and journalistic professionalism combined harmoniously!
We have featured the work of Em Cooper before, this time she has partnered with Artist Anna Cadey, in this documentary which features live action and animation.
Everything was Life is an experimental documentary using animation and live action to explore the practice of female genital mutilation
Project in progress – an animation and documentary project with a participatory focus made with a group of school children in Mlali, a village in Tanzania, East Africa. We look forward to seeing the outcome, here’s a little about their project:
Central to the project will be an ethic of collaboration, where a group of community members will be encouraged, through the use of small camcorders, to document life as they see it. We will carry out animation, character design and story telling classes in the school, and characters designed by the children will feature in the final cut. The completed film will be made up of the community’s footage, material detailing the filming process and the animation. Because of this format, we will go to Tanzania, not with a set story line or definite point of interest, but with a framework through which community members can develop their own narratives and express their own interests and stories.
The final film, edited and produced partly in Mlali with community members, will consist of an intersection of these narratives, both in film and animated format. On returning to the UK, by entering the film into festivals and shows, we hope to reflect to a global audience a genuine portrayal of every-day life in East Africa, as well as the creativity and vibrancy that exists there.
ANIMATEDDOCUMENTARY.COM 