Illustration by Andreas Hykade. Courtesy of Chris J. Robinson.

I used to joke with staff and friends about how I was certain that I could grab a quartet of mission dwellers, install them as pre-selectors for the Ottawa festival, and have no one notice the difference between their tastes and those of so-called animation professionals. Sure they’d make some strange choices… but hey… so do the ‘pro’ selection committees. And, hell…we sorta did it one year when we invited former NFBer Ryan Larkin to participate (he lives in the Old Brewery Mission in Montreal). OK… but as I said... I was pretty much just having a laff.

I just visited the very fine Fantoche animation festival in Baden, Switzerland where this journalist from Parnu, Estonia (beautiful seaside town) told me about an experiment an Estonian festival tried last year using an ex-con as a member of the selection committee. After I rolled my eyes and said… “yeah… right… ya drunk phucker” he pulled out a copy of this festival’s catalogue and sure enough… there’s the committee page including the likes of Estonian animator, Priit Tender (Fox Woman), a Finnish journalist, a Russian academic (Mikhail Surevich) a Latvian animator (Nag Emist) and this noted Estonian criminal, Ülo Voitka (who along with his brother, Aivar formed the famous Voitka Brothers). I couldn’t stop laughing as looked over the page which not only featured the guy’s mugshot, but also this detailed biography of his, umm, accomplishments. But this is all very serious, part of an attempt to help criminals reintegrate themselves into Estonian society. Apparently the festival receives funding to do this.

They also save a bit of money too. A local policeman is used as the secretary of the jury and, each night, the soon-to-be-released criminal is returned to the local jail (saving the cost of a hotel). As absurd as it all sounds… it really does make perfect sense on so many levels. First and foremost, it’s a useful humanitarian gesture. This also brings a lot of attention to the festival and animation because you know that the media will cover a story like this. It also provides a fresh perspective on animation films. Gone are the same converted faces and voices.

Can you imagine the jury meetings? Who would argue with this guy? In fact, the journalist told me that the guy did in fact snap during one session. This Russian egghead, Surevich, kept going on and on about the use of light and texture in The Brothers Quay film, In Absentia, and Voitka lost it, ran at Surevich, wrestled him to the ground, all the while screaming about how he was gonna get those “faggot twins” (Voitka later calmed down when told that Surevich said that it was made by the Quays not the Krays. In fact, Voitka was impressed to learn that beneath what he called their “faggotty cocksucker smugness,” they were actually from South Philly, USA). Fortunately, the cop was there to cool things down. Surevich wasn’t hurt, but he did resign from the jury.

OK… clearly there is the potential for some problems here… but anyone who’s been on a jury with animator Mike Smith knows that animators can snap too. Still, I’d like to take it one step further and have a full jury made up of international criminals. There’s no need for hotel or meal expenses as they’d all be in prison. We can use a prison guard or policeman as a jury secretary. And they could have their meetings in those jury rooms with the glass screens. Of course… they’d watch the competition films with the audience. They’d be escorted in before each screening, handcuffed to the chairs and surrounded by about half a dozen uniformed police including their cop secretary.