Hand-drawn, 2D-animated graduation short by Canadian animator Myriam Obin explores themes of police brutality as seen through the eyes of a child.
Following a successful run at more than 50 international film festivals, animator, illustrator and comic book artist Myriam Obin has released her 2015 graduation film, ELOÏSE, little dreamer, online.
Completed while attending the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema at Concordia University in Montréal, the four-minute, 2D-animated short is directed, designed and animated by Obin with music composed by Vincent L. Pratte and sound design by Emily Laliberté. ELOÏSE, little dreamer explores themes of police brutality as seen through the eyes of a child: “Losing her older sister in this crowd was the first step to have her world turn upside down.”
“I wanted to make a film feels a bit like a dream, showing a peaceful protest being repressed by the system in place, but from the point of view of a neutral spectator, Eloïse,” Obin writes in her artistic statement. “At first, the crowd in the city brings this impression of creation and action, but this quickly becomes too overwhelming for the little girl. In this fiction, the reasons for the protest are never explained, just like Eloïse the spectator is not aware of what is happening. The spectators are welcome to make their own assumption about the story behind this chaos. After all, every country has differing viewpoints depending on their history. At some point the tension just keeps on rising and the more Eloïse feels powerless, the smaller she gets. The worst part is, she does not know if her sister is caught in the battle. Since Eloïse can’t recognize people, anybody could be her sister.”
ELOÏSE, little dreamer received several awards during its festival run, including Best Experimental Film from Monster Cinema and Best International Animation Film from the New York City International Film Festival, and was also the winner of the visual art competition in Poland celebrating the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Experimenting in a variety of animation techniques, Obin’s previous films include the hand-drawn Daydreamer, animated using a single sheet of paper, the “1,001 Nights” adaptation, The 14th night, and The Blind man, which explores the cognitive disorder Prosopagnosia.
See below for more stills from ELOÏSE, little dreamer, and learn more about Obin’s work at cibelleanimation.com and facebook.com/myriamobin.art.
Source: Cibelle Animation
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.
