The programme of animated films about human rights uses the artistic medium of animation to introduce basic principles of human rights. The project aims to promote a critical and creative approach to human rights issues.
All the selected films are European. Superficially, one might get the impression that human rights are not a problem in Europe, but problems keep springing up regularly: the difficulties faced by asylum seekers, attacks on Roma community, police brutality. Most European countries appear on Amnesty International's yearly report on human rights violations.
All of the films discuss human rights, except for Crouching Ox, Crowing Rooster, which was made purposefully for a campaign to raise awareness about animal rights. Freedom of expression and thought, the right to live in a clean environment, the right to rest and leisure, the freedom of movement and children's rights to social security are some the topics covered in the films. One of the topics is also the right to be free from torture, as exemplified in the “democratic” war in Iraq, which similarly to other wars in the last decades is being represented through a censorship filter and in entertainment format by the mass media.
The urgent issues that are associated with human rights make the right to media education just as important - this involves the congruent and systematic education about different media types including film, or in our case, animated film. After all, we live in a world where we are predominantly surrounded by the audio-visual - moving pictures. They give us information about what is going on in world around us, about what to buy, how to act. Media have a strong influence in contemporary society, so understanding their nature is a precondition for living in the modern world. Given their importance, media education is becoming a basic human right. The Human rights animated film programme stimulates critical viewing and reflexivity, which are preconditions for the active and creative participation in media culture and art.
In cooperation with the Human Rights Ombudsman.
Entry to all Human Rights Animated Films screenings is free.
Freedom of speech
Leon Vidmar, Ugo Ugowsky, Jaka Kramberger (oink!studio)
Slovenija / Slovenia, 2005, DVD, 1'
»Vsi ljudje smo posamezniki, ne glede na sisteme in družbe, v katerih živimo. Zato je normalno, da se razlikujejo tako naše navade in nacini življenja kot tudi znanja in prepricanja o sebi in svetu. Najlažje razumemo tisto, kar nam je znano. Animacija opozarja na našo raznolikost, ki jo je treba priznavati in upoštevati, tudi kadar cesa ne razumemo …«
”All people are individuals, regardless of the system and society in which we live. It is therefore normal that we have different habits and lifestyles, as well as diverse knowledge and beliefs about ourselves and the world. Familiar things are easiest to comprehend. The film draws attention to our diversity, which we should acknowledge and take into consideration, even if we do not understand something…”
Delivery
Till Nowak (Fachhochschule Mainz)
Nemcija / Germany, 2005, 35 mm, 9'12''
Glej program Sodobni nemški animirani film na strani
See Contemporary German Animated Film on page
Cleverman
Joseph Brumm (Joseph Brumm)
VB / UK, 2005, Beta SP, 9'
Ali so zunanji dogodki res krivi za naše težave? Ali pa se v resnici poskušamo samo izogniti neprijetnim kemicnim reakcijam, ki jih sprožajo v nas?
Are external events in themselves really to blame for our woes? Or are the unpleasant chemical reactions they trigger within us what we are really trying to avoid?
All People Is Plastic
Harald Hund (Amour Fou Filmproduction)
Avstrija / Austria, 2005, 35 mm, 12'
V zgodovini filma je velemesto pogosto predstavljalo ozadje distopicnih fantazij: ideja urbanega prostora kot krutega molohovskega stroja je poganjala vizijo prihodnosti Fritza Langa v filmu Metropolis (1927), kjer so zasužnjeni delavci prisiljeni v delo za tekocim trakom. Tridimenzionalni animirani film All People Is Plastic se sklicuje na to podobo mesta kot disciplinskega stroja ter na kritiko modernosti Jacquesa Tatija, za katerega je korporativna kultura predstavljala delovni svet vsiljene konformnosti. V svetu All People Is Plastic so liki že dolgo predmet množicne proizvodnje: Hund je namrec svoje »default« ljudi (standardne like) oblikoval s standardno 3D programsko opremo za animacije in te medle, sive prototipe, shematizirane kot moške in ženske, vstavil v niše futuristicnega pisarniškega sveta.
In the history of cinema the modern big city has often served as a screen onto which dystopian fantasies are projected: The idea of the urban space as a cruel, Moloch-like machine drove Fritz Lang's sinister vision of the future, Metropolis (1927), in which the mass of slave-like workers is forced into the serfdom of assembly-line labor. Harald Hund's 3-D animation film All People Is Plastic refers to both this image of the city as a machine of discipline and Jacques Tati's criticism of the modern age, for whom "corporate culture" serves as a working world of enforced conformity. In the world of All People Is Plastic the figures have long been the result of mass production: Hund animated his figures with conventional 3D character-animation software, so-called Default People (standard figures), and fit his matte-gray prototypes, schematized as either male or female, into the slots of a futuristic office world.
Ponižan vol, pojoci petelin / Crouching Ox, Crowing Rooster
Martin Pickles (Pickles Productions)
VB / UK, 2005, DVD, 5'24''
V risanki Ponižan vol, pojoci petelin, ko kitajsko podeželje zamaje potres, na pomoc prihiti godrnjava stara lisica. Film je narocilo Svetovno društvo za zašcito živali, in sicer za kampanjo World Farm Watch, s katero poskuša izboljšati razmere za domace živali v Aziji in Južni Ameriki.
Crouching Ox, Crowing Rooster is an animated cartoon in which a grumpy old ox saves the day when an earthquake strikes in rural China. The film was commissioned by the World Society for the Protection of Animals for their World Farm Watch campaign to improve conditions for farm animals across Asia and South America.
Koga imaš raje, mamico ali ocija? / Kit szeretsz jobban? / Who do you love more, Mummy or Daddy?
Dániel Huszár (Hungarian University of Arts & Design, Budapest)
Madžarska / Hungary, 2005, Beta SP, 3'29''
Glej Tekmovalni program na strani
See Competition Film on page
Infinite Justice
Karl Tebbe (FH Dortmund)
Nemcija / Germany, 2006, 35 mm, 2'
Infinite Justice fragmente vojnih porocil, prikazane na nemški televiziji v casu vrhunca iraške vojne, ponovno sestavi s posnetki akcijskih figuric, ki jih za otroke v starosti nad pet let prodajajo v ZDA. »Nevarnost zadušitve, igraca vsebuje majhne delcke.« To ni niti Disney niti Team America. To je vojna. Prijatelje imamo na obeh straneh.
Infinite Justice takes fragments from war reports shown on German television - Iraq war at its best - and reconstructs these frame by frame with action figures sold in the USA, suitable for children over 5. “CHOKING HAZARD - Small parts.” This isn't Disney. Not Team America. This is war. And we have friends on both sides.
Biserni clovek / Pärlimees / The Pearlman
Rao Heidmets (Nukufilm OÜ)
Estonija / Estonia, 2006, 35 mm, 12'
Predsedniki, kralji in vraci so odgovorni za dobrobit svojih ljudi. Moder voditelj lahko dolgo varuje svojo kulturo, toda tudi on je nemocen pred genskim transferjem. Kulture se prepletajo, kri se meša in rodijo se izkoreninjene generacije, ki nimajo ne identitete ne pravega obcutka, kje je njihov dom. Ljudje ne živijo vec v harmoniji in njihova usoda je zapecatena.
Presidents, kings and shamans bear responsibility for the welfare of their people. A wise leader of the people manages to keep his culture untouched for a long time but even he is powerless against genetic transfer. Cultures mix, blood mixes and rootless generations are born lacking identity and a proper sense of where their home is. The people no longer live in harmony with nature and this seals its fate.
Mehurcek / Buborék / Bubble
Árpád Miklós (MA-RA Film)
Madžarska / Hungary, 2005, 35 mm, 3'
Podobe unicujocih virusov potrošniške družbe, ki jih prenašajo hipnoticni virtualni mediji. Upanje na rešitev obstaja samo, ce spet obudimo poraženi, prvobitni, naravni jaz.
Images of consumer society viruses carried by hypnotic virtual media deform and destroy. The hope of the way out is possible by the resurrection of our defeated primeval natural ego.
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