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 for exhibition of them, 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.

One Voice One Vote (Je suis une voix) (2007), 13:38, by Cécile Rousset and Jeanne Paturle (France). Contact: Jean-Christophe Soulageon, Les films Sauvages, 33 avenue de Saint Ouen, 75017 Paris, France [T] +33.1.42.29.55.04 [F] +33.1.53.31.19.47 [E] festival@filmsauvages.com. International sales: La Luna Diffusion, 20 rue de la chappelle, 75011 Paris, France [T] +33.1.48.07.56.00 [F] +33.1.48.07.11.88 [E] diffusion@lunaprod.fr

Once Upon a Christmas Village (2007), 15:00, by Michael Attardi (U.S.). Contact: Dream Balloon Productions, 123 East River Road, Rumson, N.J. 07760 [T] 848.218.9009, 888.766.9955 [W] www.dreamballoonproductions.com

Mesh (2006), 39:00, by Beau Janzen (U.S.). Contact: Beau Janzen, Zipheron Design Labs [E] beau@zipheron.com [W] www.zipheron.com

Haunted Hogmanay (2006), 29:00, by Neil Jack (U.K.). Contact: Cameron Fraser, Ko Lik Films Ltd., 75 Trafalgar Lane, Edinburgh, EH6 4DQ, U.K. [T] +44. (0)131.553.4494 [F] +44 (0)131.553.2828 [E] info@kolik.co.uk [W] www.kolik.co.uk

Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf (2006), 32:32, by Suzie Templeton (U.K.). Contact: Elva Tarpey, Breakthru Films [T] +44. (0) 20.7580.3688 [E] elva@breakthrufilms.co.uk [W] www.breakthrufilm.co.uk, www.peterandthewolf.co.uk

Two strangers hash out everyone’s least favorite after-dinner topic in One Voice One Vote. © Les films Sauvages.

One Voice One Vote
One Voice One Vote is a mutant documentary from France about politics at a very local level, so local it's sitting opposite us on the sofa. It's based on two audio interviews, one with someone who's politically active and the other with someone apolitical (making the title somewhat ironic; there are actually two voices here but, between them, they'll probably cast a total of, yes, just one vote).

Arnaud is 28, an engineer, with two-year-old twins. He doesn't trust politicians; he doesn't think political processes work. He doesn't particularly like talking about the subject, and he certainly never brings it up with his own family. Martine, on the other hand, is active, charged, engaged, and enthused about politics. She was working at the local City Hall when the protests of '68 went down, and she remembers vividly how normal services -- garbage collection, funerals, marriages -- went unperformed after all the protesting civil servants went home. With everyone on strike, she and her compatriots on the strike committee suddenly found themselves in charge of local civic affairs, and she stepped into the breach. She's now 66, and a sociologist.

Arnaud is aghast at the idea of voting; Martine embraces it even as she insists it's only a small part of one's total civic duty. They both live in or near Grenoble, a skiing town in the south of France quite removed from the hurly-burly of Paris -- and they've never met. They talk only with the documentarians at first, but then the filmmakers start playing back bits of each participant's interview to the other party to get his/her reaction.

The simple life lessons they describe, and the droll and elegant way the animators elaborate on them, feel so true that with any luck you're going to become enraged by the fact that you agree with both of the speakers even though they seem to be in diametric opposition. Arnaud is right; politics is extremely annoying and perfidious. And Martine is right; politics is necessary, and it's its own solution. What Arnaud tries to articulate (all the while apologizing for how inarticulate he feels) is the disgust we all feel for things political. Just free-associate on the topic for a minute and see if you come up with anything but bummers... Politics is electing Presidents and then sitting back and waiting for their crimes to catch up with them (with six years being the average for a two-termer). Politics is making rulers when, as Douglas Adams noted, "those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it." Politics is shouting TV shows where the pundits don't actually know anything, but it's okay because wow, they're outrageous! Politics is the creeping realization that a successful scientist ignores received truths and popular wisdom and focuses only on the evidence -- whereas a successful politician does exactly the opposite.

All that may be the case, but what Martine tries to articulate is just as compelling: politics is annoying because the process is work, lots of work, and we'd rather just not do it. Maybe she is politically engaged because she got involved in politics before she got interested -- the job was open, someone had to do something, so she, a basically competent person, stepped up to the plate and discovered that she, like her predecessor, was qualified too. I like to think the only competent political personalities are the ones who have been dragooned into the job -- a feeling I've harbored ever since reading William Brown's great 1990 comic strip collection President Bill, wherein the cartoonist imagines how his life would change if he were shanghaied lottery-style into being President against his will. But on a smaller scale, it probably means I need to go to that local zoning hearing - and read up on it first.

Arnaud and Martine's personal stories are told simply and effectively through the animation, done in charcoal and colorful collaged paper cutouts on a friendly cream background. The line work is minimalistic at first, with just splashes of aqua and orange to identify the man and woman as they move through an abstract space. Then the color scheme expands, the environments become lavishly detailed, and the collage bursts out in printed slogans and teeming crowds. Cécile Rousset teaches at Paris' ENSAD school, where she and her Montreal-educated colleague Jeanne Paturle created One Voice One Vote this year with their production company Les Films Sauvages.