Dull Hope

Time Hoppers: The Silk Road

2050, Aqli Academy, Vancouver: Four gifted children—Abdullah, Aysha, Khalid and Layla—stumble upon the ability to time travel, they are thrust into an adventure along the historic Silk Road to protect the era's great scientists from the evil time travelling alchemist Fasid. Will the Time Hoppers be able to save the foundations of modern science and safely return home?

Swan

A short experimental animation by Jules Engel

Mahavatar Narsimha

Tyrannical demon Hiranyakashyap challenges Vishnu, proclaiming himself a god. However, his son Prahlad remains devoted to Vishnu, who appears as Narsimha to defeat the demon.

Centipede

Short experimental animation by Jules Engel

El Cuerpo Táctil

The encounter of a wound, a body and a city results in the alteration of the whole.

Interior

Short experimental computer animation by Jules Engel

Another One

A small figure discovers that he is not alone, and he goes on a quest to find the other.

Orbit

The sun’s energy circulates throughout the earth, feeding the cycle of life. Everything is connected in a natural loop, which repeats, like the circular discs of magical optical toys. This perfectly balanced rhythm is disrupted by human excess, throwing the cycle out of orbit and temporarily stopping the circulation of energy in nature.

The Esoteric Birthday

The Tune

Del is a song writer for the obnoxious Mr. Mega, and in love with Didi, Mega's secretary. His quest to write a hit tune brings him to the wacky world of Flooby Nooby, where he just might learn to write songs from the heart.

Sirenetta’s Family Dinner

Sirenetta's boyfriend is finally meeting her family, but there's just one little problem; he's a human and they're all mermaids.

Odds & Ends

Odds & Ends is a sly comment on the collage film and Beat culture. To discarded travel and advertising footage found at a local film laboratory, Belson Shimane added a mélange of animation—assemblages, cutouts, color fields, and line drawings—and faux hipster narration by Jacobs (credited via the anagram Rheny Bojacs) punctuated by a bongo backing. Strung together with doublespeak and non sequiturs, the monologue skirts the edge of nonsense as Jacobs waxes on about poetry, jazz, “reaching the public,” “having a good time,” and—although “money doesn’t count”—the “possibility of subsidy” through grants. Footage of champagne, tropical beaches, and exotic peoples intermingle with rhythmic drawings and stop-motion flights of fancy. The visuals race on through dazzling transformations, both amplifying and undercutting the patter. —National Film Preservation Foundation. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Iota Center Collection in 2006.

The Grandmother

To escape neglect and abuse from his parents, a young boy plants some strange seeds and they grow into a grandmother.

Minuet

An essay in colour harmonics and visual overtones. Conceived and produced as part of the Images Film Festival's Minute Movies.

Cameras Take Five

The enduring romance of the lines. A visual exploration of Dave Brubeck's jazz classic "Take Five".

Valentine in Things City

A research and design project that imagines the future of post-human spaces like Google data centers and Amazon warehouses. Using the same artificial intelligence code that organizes logistics infrastructure, a fictional fulfillment center at the scale of a city has been procedurally generated. Things City is designed to accommodate only delivery drones, logistics bots, and packages as its citizens. Through the eyes of the city’s machines, we watch as a girl enters Things City on Valentine’s day searching for a lost package.

Balance

The setting is on a floating platform where a group of evenly and carefully placed men live. Each man is aware that the platform is not stable and in order not to fall to their deaths, they maintain a careful balance of weight to prevent the platform from tipping too far and cause them all to fall.

Porcelain

Two girls explore their relationship and what it means to be in the world and be vulnerable in this hand drawn graphite animation.

Dastaan-E-Sirhind

The film is based on a Canadian NRI Punjabi, who goes far away from his religion. Due to his busy work schedule he fails to give time to his family and teach his child about his culture and Sikh religion. He comes to Fatehgarh Sahib in Punjab along with his family to reconnect with his ancestral roots, culture, tradition. His grandmother tells about the entire history of martyrdom of Chote Sahibzadas and Mata Gujri.

Shapes and Gestures

Begins as a whimsical piece with 'sheets' of lines running down the screen, progressing into more and more complex geometic patterns but without deviating from the basic precepts of 'dot and line' animation. Jazz piano on a lazy Sunday afternoon, and a spring color palette. -- Stephanie Sapienza. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2001.