UTOPIA HA HA
Guest curated by Miranda Javid.
Ten animated films that inspire optimism toward boundless possibility or reflect an uncanny depiction of our less-than-perfect world. A ping pong of emotions — sometimes in the same film — this screening reflects on the breath of possible worlds within animation, winks at gritty reality, and invites a silver lining of radical joy.
VOICES by Joanna Priestley, 1985, 4 min
An exploration of fear of the dark, old age, obesity, monsters, and global destruction. Directed, produced and animated by Joanna Priestley. Sound designed and produced by R. Dennis Wiancko. Narrated by Joanna Priestley.
ONCE MORE WITH FEELING by Pallavi Agarwala, 2022, 4 min
Once More, With Feeling is an action-comedy film with statues. We see heroes rise and the actions that led them to being elevated. Made using postcards and scalpel, I developed my own style of animating prints to create meaning
STORY FROM NORTH AMERICA by Garrett Davis + Kirsten Lepore, 2007, 4 min
Life and death. Man and nature. The world and pudding. This is a story from North America.
OPERATION JANE WALK by Robin Klengel + Leonhard Müllner, 2019, 16 min
The war zone of a dystopian multiplayer shooting game is used to embark some urban explorers on a winter walk, avoiding combat whenever possible, as peaceful observers, inhabitants of a digital world, which is a detailed replica of Midtown Manhattan.
THE STITCHES SPEAK by Nina Sabini, 2009, 12 min
A documentary textile animation about the tragic life of people who captured it in embroidery. Refugee camps, an earthquake, poverty: they suffered a great deal. Gorgeously animated embroidery stitches in an authentic and utterly sincere portrait.
PLANTS by Deanna Morse, 1989, 4 min
A life-long obsession revealed. Plants can't walk. Plants don't have eyes. Plants don't talk. Plants can't see. Plants don't have legs.
MYTH TODAY by Jonah Primiano, 2021, 5 min
Familiar gestures from disparate American institutions are isolated through hand-drawn rotoscope animation to reveal the troubling connections between them.
LA JOIE DE VIVRE by Anthony Gross, 1934, 9 min
A tone poem: two woodland sprites dance about, atop power lines and among flowers and leaves, while being pursued. Everyone spends some time pulling levers to switch trains, too.
489 YEARS by Hayoun Kwan, 2016, 11 min
Immersed in the heart of the personal memory. A soldier shares his experience in a research mission and the amazing discovery he made in a field of mines laid by South Korea with no record of where they were placed.. He speaks of a place where people are forbidden, a place where nature has totally reclaimed its hold.
WILD HEART 1981 / 2020 by Zach Dorn, 2020, 6 min
While browsing YouTube at the start of the 2020 COVID pandemic, a narrator lingers on a video of Stevie Nicks singing “Wild Heart.”
DJ SET by Erosika at Rockaway Brewing Co.
Our Sponsors
Rockaway Film Festival would like to thank VBX™~Vernam Basin Terminal for generously hosting us at the Arverne Cinema in addition to BBX™~Barbadoes Basin Terminal for contributing to such.
RFF is proud to be sponsored by Blundstone®, Istic Illic Pictures, and NYC Ferry. Rockaway Film Festival made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Rockaway Film Festival is funded in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Art, and by the Howard Gilman Foundation administered by Flushing Town Hall. RFF receives additional support from Queens Borough President Donovan Richards.