A Sufi Tale

A new look at a centuries-old fairy tale! Using a medieval style of illustration to animate the story of Cinderella, the film gives the leading role to a mistreated, romantic penguin, with hilarious results. Cinderella Penguin loses her magic flipper as she runs to meet her midnight deadline, but all ends well when Prince Charming finds the right webbed foot and the nasty step-family is brought to heel. Film without words.

The time: New Year's Eve, late 1800s. The place: Gatineau Valley, Quebec. A group of loggers, working in an isolated winter camp, yearn to celebrate New Year's Eve with their loved ones. But the river is frozen, the sky is dark, and swirling snow makes travelling treacherous. If the men want to see their families, their only choice is to make a pact with the devil to ride in a flying canoe. While pacts with the devil are the stuff of legends from another time, the cautionary tale of The Flying Canoe has a resonance for modern life. Original music and bold animation preserve the spirit of this well-known Quebec legend derived from La Chasse-galerie, first published in 1891 by Honoré Beaugrand. Hand-drawn animation scanned and coloured on computer.

Within the crystal chambers of a glittering palace, a magnificent bird performs for its Emperor--its plumage a blaze of colour. A blackbird, watching enviously, strives to acquire what he so desperately covets, only to discover that a golden cage cannot vie with the open skies. Innovative mixed-media techniques--cutouts, colour pencil renderings on cels and paper, multiple exposures, and backlit perforated backgrounds--combine with human imagination to produce this visually stunning animation short. Film without words.