Can I Stay

Animation by Onyee Lo, Paige Carter and Katie Knudson,

Sita Sings the Blues

Sita Sings the Blues

Sita Sings the Blues, a wonderful feature-length animation from talented graphic artist and animator Nina Paley.

An India epic and also a modern tale.

Sita Sings the Blues is based on the Hindu epic The Ramayana. Sita is a goddess separated from her beloved Lord and husband Rama.

The Ramayana is attributed Valmiki, who was drawing upon an earlier oral tradition. According to Valmiki, Rama dictated to him the story, he was merely the scribe who wrote it in Sanskrit.

The tradition then, is we draw upon what went before. That is until we enclosed the intellectual commons, and intellectual property rights reared its ugly head, having looted the commons, we then sell it back, packaged as entertainment.

To resolve all the copyright issues associated with Sita Sings the Blues, Nina went $70,000 into debt. It is important to emphasise, this was just to clear restrictive copyright issues, it was not the budget for making the film. The copyright issues took a year to resolve.

In Dark Mountain Vol 5, Strange Children written by Akshay Ahuja tells one of the stories from the other great India epic Mahabharata.

Pudding Lane

Amazing animation created by six students of De Montfort University of 17th Century London centred around Pudding Lane before the Great Fire of London burnt the area to the ground.

Whilst we can only speculate what this part of London looked like, the students used historical maps and actual street signs.

This was a British Museum Off the Map project.

• Pudding Lane blog
• Prize-Winning Animation Lets You Fly Through 17th Century London
• Fly Through 17th Century London

5m80

Short film by Nicolas Devaux.

Produced by Cube Creative Productions and Orange.

With the participation of Arte, the support of the City of Paris and the partnership of CNC.

Muse / Exogenisis Part 3 (Redemption) 鉄拳「振り子」

This animation has proved very popular in Japan.

I am very much reminded of an art exhibition at The Collection in Lincoln at the beginning of the year that looked at the passage of time in a life through the seasons.

• Dreams in seasons

Paulo Coelho – Beautiful Animation for Aleph

Animation for Aleph by Paulo Coelho.

The Point

Some get the point, others do not. What we think is pointless rarely is. Ironically it is often activities like pointless consumerism which are pointless that no one gets the point that they are pointless.

If enough people rise up, we can even overthrow dictators.

The Point (1971): An animated story of an unusual kingdom in which everything and everybody is pointed – except for a young boy named Oblio, who has a round face. But it is not what we look like, it is what is within us, what we do, that matters.

Despite his round head, Oblio has many friends. But an evil count, jealous that Oblio is more popular than his own son, says that without a pointed head, Oblio is an outlaw. Along with his faithful dog Arrow, Oblio is exiled to the Pointless Forest. There, he has many fantastic experiences (including encounters with a 3-headed man, giant bees, a tree in the leaf-selling business, and a good-humored old rock). From his adventures, Oblio learns that it is not at all necessary to be pointed to have a point in life.

Music composed and performed by Harry Nilsson (“Me and My Arrow”), who also wrote the story. Ringo Starr narrates.

http://www.youtube.com/user/thehobbitmov#grid/user/BD81D72E7BDB1A73

Cows with Guns

I first saw Cows with Guns at the BeyondTV International Film Festival in Swansea. I never did discover why I got an invite, I actually got three, but I went and thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was well worth going to. Not quite Cannes, but then Cannes is not about films.

I became a regularly and it was something I looked forward to. 2008 I did not go as I did not like the programme. 2009 I did not go as I was broke.

– BeyondTV 5th International Film Festival
– BeyondTV International Film Festival 2005
– BeyondTV International Film Festival 2006
– BeyondTV International Film Festival 2007

It was held around this time of year (usually end of November, early December), so I thought I would go this year. It looks like it no longer takes place, 2008 was the last one, which explains why I got no invite for 2009.

It is easy to see why it is no more. Although the last couple I attended had full feature length films and trailers for others, this was never what it was about. It was short documentaries, often of only a few minutes long, or animations like Cows with guns. The point was that you do not have to rely on the mainstream media, you too can be the media, all you need is the internet and a decent video camera and editing facilities.

Look at the success of Story of Stuff and the follow ons.

In many ways if BeyondTV has died, it is because of the success of its own message. People are making their own videos. One only has to look at the success of YouTube. If I want to see a video, I can do so with my laptop connected to the internet. Many of these short videos you can find on this blog, and once you have found one, you will find there are many similar videos closely linked. Sometimes I go looking for them, but mainly I do not have to, I receive them through twitter and facebook, and those I think worth watching I re-tweet, share on facebook and the very best get a mention here.

Synchronicity: It is strange, I was thinking of Cows with guns and was going to look for it. I did not have to. Checking out BeyondTV on the Undercurrents website (who were the organisers of BeyondTV) I stumbled upon Cows with guns.

I did though, and I do not know where, come across something that looked remarkably similar to BeyondTV down in Brighton in February. When I saw saw it I thought at the time it looked similar to BeyondTV. But I do not know where I saw it. If anyone has any details, please let me know and/or write the details in comments below.

If same weekend as Seedy Sunday Brighton maybe worth making a weekend of it! Though sadly the last time I went it had gone downhill.

– Seedy Sunday Brighton 2005
– Seedy Sunday Brighton 2006
– Seedy Sunday Brighton 2007
– Seedy Sunday Brighton 2008

Maher Zain – Palestine Will Be Free | ماهر زين – فلسطين سوف تتحرر