Tag: animation

Art + Culture, Girl Who Would be King

ART/FILM/VIFF: Loving Vincent

I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.

This anticipated animated film about Vincent Van Gogh was a real story telling treat.  What’s so amazing about this film is that it is entirely hand painted with Van Gogh’s paintings serving as the backdrop for each frame.  In fact, it is the very first fully painted feature which took seven years to complete.  It’s visually astonishing!

The story takes place in the French village of Arles (a place I visited with my husband where we sat in the famous Terrasse du café le soir.  Yes; that one!

The son of a local postmaster goes around hunting for clues as to why the painter took his own life. There were conflicting reports as to whether he actually committed suicide. The question is really why Vincent went from a complacent quiet man to someone who would take his own life in a matter of weeks.  A look into a complicated, talented but tortured soul.  Sad that in his lifetime he sold only one of his fine works.  Can you imagine?

He saw beauty in the tiniest of objects and in things that most people would deem insignificant.  A man of true genius.

I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.”

I dream of painting and then I paint my dream – Vincent Van Gogh

Your dream came true, it’s just too bad that you were not around to realize it. 

How people all around the world admire your work and can only dream of owning a piece of you!

Please visit: https://www.viff.org to find out more and how to purchase tickets.  The Film Fest runs until October 13th

 

 

 

 

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Art + Culture, Girl Who Would be King

ART/Culture/FILM – Window Horses

“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.” – Edgar Allan Poe

Everyone knows that Poe is a Poet but we all have different viewpoints of another person’s image.  That is called perception. What happens when someone doesn’t fit into the “usual” image we form for something they represent?windowhorses7

What is Window Horses?

Window Horses is a new Animated, Multi-Cultural, Unusual, Smart Feature Film with a Message. I find it inspiring. It is written, directed and produced by someone I know, Ann Marie Fleming, who has been making award winning films for over 25 years. Because she is such an unusual & inspiring person herself I knew that at the very least it would be interesting and worth checking out.  So….

windowhorses2

Rosie Ming is a mixed-race, 20-something, introverted, closet poet who dreams of going to Paris.  She doesn’t know a thing about her parents.  Sandra Oh (Grey’s Anatomy, Sideways, Under the Tuscan Sun, etc…) is Rosie. Her work is about transformation!

Taken from the Website:

This film is our small effort to try and add a little more peace, love and understanding to our increasingly complex and conflicted world through art, poetry, history and culture. Heady stuff!

Not to give too much away but….

It’s about love (it’s always about love…) – love of family, poetry, history, culture. Here’s the story: Rosie Ming, a young Canadian poet, is invited to perform at a Poetry Festival in Shiraz, Iran, but she’d rather be in Paris. She lives at home with her over-protective Chinese grandparents and has never been anywhere by herself. Once in Iran, she finds herself in the company of poets and Persians, all who tell her stories that force her to confront her past; the Iranian father she assumed abandoned her and the nature of Poetry itself. It’s about building bridges between cultural and generational divides. It’s about being curious. Staying open. And finding your own voice through the magic of poetry.

Rosie goes on an unwitting journey of forgiveness, reconciliation, and perhaps above all, understanding, through learning about her father’s past, her own cultural identity, and her responsibility to it.

WATCH the Trailer:

“Window Horses hits all the things that are important to me: it’s pro-girl, pro-tolerance, pro-diversity and PRO-ART!! My nieces are mixed race and it’s very important to me that they see themselves represented in this society.” – Sandra Oh

Heady Stuff Indeed!

Window Horses will be playing during  VIFF (September 29 – October 14, 2016).  For program & tickets please visit:

https://www.viff.org