Within the world of animation, most experimentation occurs within short-format productions, whether they are high-budgeted commercials, low-budgeted independent shorts or something in-between. The growing number of short film festivals around the world attests to the vitality of these works, but there are few other venues where they are exhibited, nor are they often reviewed. As a result, distribution tends to be difficult and irregular. On a regular basis, Animation World Magazine will highlight some of the most interesting of these films with short, descriptive overviews.

Carnival of Animals (Karneval zvírat) (2006), 10:30, by Michaela Pavlátová (Czech Republic). Contact: Katerina Riley [T] +420.606.634.688 [E] riley@tiscali.cz, Katerina Cerna [E] katerina@negativ.cz [W] www.negativ.cz, www.michaelapavlatova.com

Battle of the Album Covers (2006), 2:41, by Rohitash Rao (U.S.). Contact: Rohitash Rao [E] ro@uglypictures.us [W] uglypictures.us

guy101 (2005), 8:30, by Ian W. Gouldstone (U.K./U.S.). Contact: Ian W. Gouldstone [E] contact@iwgouldstone.com [W] www.iwgoulstone.com

Look for Me (2005), 3:30, by Laura Heit (U.S.). Contact: Maria Manton, Slinky Pictures, The Old Truman Brewery, 91 Brick Lane, London E1 6QL, U.K. [T] +44 (0) 2072476444 [F] +44 (0) 2072470164 [E] info@slinkypics.com ]W] www.slinkypics.com

My Love (Moya lyubov) (2006), 26:35, by Alexander Petrov (Russia). Contact: Lyuba Kuznetsova, Dago Film Studio, 2nd Kozhevnicheskiy, 12, Moscow, Russia 115114 [T] +74957753753, +74957753759 [E] lkuznetsova@dago.ru [W] www.dago.ru

Carnival of Animals © Michaela Pavlátová, Negativ Prod.

Carnival of Animals
Camille Saint-Saëns composed Carnival of the Animals in 1886 for a Mardi Gras celebration. It’s a goofy 14-movement suite that’s tailor-made for a bacchanal, and you can knock it out in under a half hour. Saint-Saëns was making a living as a serious composer at the time and he stipulated that no one perform the full suite while he was alive, reasoning that if listeners weren’t actually at a Mardis Gras they might not get the joke. Say what you will about modern times, but these days we definitely get the joke; Carnival is up for creative recycling all the time, and was memorably animated in Disney’s Fantasia/2000 when animator Joe Grant gave a flamingo a yo-yo.

Last year Czech animator Michaela Pavlátová directed an animated short for a goodly chunk of the Carnival of the Animals suite with a design inspired by the illustrations of artist Vratislav Hlavat (whose wonderful Searle-like movie poster designs you can slobber over at the Terryho Ponozky online store). Pavlátová’s Carnival of the Animals is the same carnival we all know, with some different animals attached: in Pavlátová’s take, this one’s almost entirely about people and entirely about sex.

After the opening title card, the film jumps straight to the second movement, “Hens and Roosters,” with the chickens represented by young girls and boys going from babyhood to puberty in under thirty seconds -- then flocking together in disparate groups, then eyeing each other suspiciously, then pushing one of their own out of the safety of the group to confront his/her opposing representative. Hands reach out tentatively, a breast and crotch are touched, and bingo. Fade out.

In the third movement, “Wild Asses (Quick Animals),” a scintillating mass of game-card body parts, including a wide variety of mighty swords and mammaries, coruscate across the screen to the speedy melodies of Saint-Saëns’ feral donkeys. The next segment skips ahead to the famous seventh movement, “Aquarium,” portrayed here as a fishbowl nocturne featuring a man and a woman in bed dreaming of other couples -- and singles -- who are whiling the night away in similar rooms. The dream imagery is strongest here, with a woman holding a pair of scissors standing purposefully across the room from a mysterious crocodile, and a woman clenching the back of a man in vaguely Communist uniform bent over a table with a gun in a drawer. Fish and mermaids float by; the camera floats from room to room; and finally man and woman embrace on their mattress as the sun rises and the water drains from their bedroom.

The eighth movement, “Characters with Long Ears,” is a serenade to a jackass; and, boy, is it the perfect context for an animated look at The First Time. Little boy. Big woman. Scared little virgin. Bored courtesan. Visions of friends jeering just beyond the bedpost. Flashes of women in bondage gear having a much better time. Yep, it all ends in tears. The next movement, “Aviary,” is much jollier: men and women relax in a public park doing rather unusual things with the birds -- the women offering up breasts to beaks, the men scattering their (literal) seed -- all while a fountain spurts happily away. Then comes “The Swan” -- here treated so beautifully and simply I’ll duck it completely and let you have it fresh in your own first viewing. Finally comes the inevitable Finale where it’s the big party and simply everybody’s coming! This is just too good to describe, but I’ll say I was most impressed by eleven rabbits in a circle-jerk having it off with each others’ ears.