Mammon demonstrates that being an artist might be the most miserable fate you can ever bestow upon someone. © Robin Fuller.

Mammon
Being an artist isn't all fun and games. It's not enough to simply find paying clients who will subsidize your tortured, Bohemian lifestyle; if you let your guard down for even a moment, you might find yourself selling your dreams and ideals in exchange for a fleeting chance at fame and glory. In fact, as the creators of the short film Mammon are apt to tell you, being an artist might just be the most miserable fate you can ever bestow upon someone.

Through beat poetry and industrial music, a gray, sorrowful poet relates his own tragic tale of art and suffering, in which he sacrifices his muse (in the form of a gray, blank-eyed woman) for the promise of fame and fortune. As he turns his back on her, his muse is bound, gagged and abused at the hands of Mammon, a bloated, skull-headed monstrosity who represents the corruption of art for financial gain.

This bleak tale is told through marionettes and stop-motion animation filmed in front of a green screen, with backgrounds and additional hand-drawn animation composited in Final Cut Pro. Can an artist create something that satisfies himself, his patrons, and his audience, without compromising his ideals? I don't have the answer to that one, but if Mammon's director, Robin Fuller, is making his living as a professional animator, I'm sure he has a lot to say on the subject.

Simple decisions made by each woman in Styri (Four) result in catastrophic, life-altering events for all. © Ivana Sebestová.

Styri (Four)
Four is an engaging film from director Ivana Sebestová that follows the lives of four women over the course of a single afternoon in the spring of 1937. Simple decisions made by each woman result in catastrophic, life-altering events for all four. A stray thought here or there, a road not taken, or even a different purchase at the local grocer's can save or damn countless strangers, depending on how certain events come to pass.

The film opens with the story of Hana, a pilot, and her final flight. After her tale concludes, we see, in turn, other events that occurred that afternoon, including the daily route of Eva, the mailwoman; a typical day's work for Lilith, a shopkeeper; and a greatly anticipated seaside concert by Ariel, a beloved singer and celebrity who inspires fanatical adoration from her legion of fans.

Each individual story involves transportation and romance, and each story has a significant impact upon the other three. The film's designs are evocative of popular muralists and expressionists of the late 1930s, giving the animation an unearthly, surreal quality, not unlike watching a painting come to life in a hesitant, uncertain manner. The slightly-removed-from-reality palette combined with the not-quite-human faces and bodies of the characters and the faint, eerie soundtrack further heighten the film's sense of drama and tension.

Four women, four stories, and a single tragedy come together to produce a remarkable film that, most likely, needs to be seen four times to fully appreciate just what Sebestová has accomplished.

A simple slip of the thumb during text messaging provides a universal source of humor in Vaterschaftstest (Paternity Test). © Katherine Landgrebe.

A simple slip of the thumb is all it takes to mistakenly invite the wrong person to Thanksgiving Dinner, confess your undying love to the pizza delivery guy, or complain about your boss to... your boss. It's a universal fear, and Landgrebe realizes that it's also a universal source of humor.

Through simple use of 2D computer animation, Flash MX and a fun synthesizer score evocative of classic animation soundtracks, she relates the tale of Robert, who hasn't quite gotten the hang of text messaging. When communications between his wife, his mistress and his best friend get crossed... well, let's just say that it plays out like an episode of Three's Company for the new millennium. [Editor's note: Unfortunately, we are unable to include music with the clip for Paternity Test due to rights issues.]

Andrew Farago is the gallery manager and curator of San Francisco's Cartoon Art Museum and the creator of the weekly online comic serial The Chronicles of William Bazillion.