Close Up

24 November 2024: Magic in Marimekko: Dick Arnall, Animate and the Manipulated Moving Image followed by Q&A

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Dick Arnall, the hugely influential producer of many of Britain's most important animators, and a key figure in Channel 4's Animate! commissioning series in the 1990s and early 2000s, would have been 80 this year. His death aged 62 in 2007 robbed the animation world of one of its most passionate and committed advocates. Dick's wide-ranging tastes, warm enthusiasm and his profound engagement with what he preferred to call the “manipulated moving image” began in his student years and took many different forms over the decades to come. This programme gathers just a handful of the numerous often award-winning titles he either produced or consulted on, and includes a film by his wife, the Finnish animator Marjut Rimminen and the acclaimed Rabbit by the late Run Wrake, who also died far too early, in 2012. In what we take as a significant conjunction, this event takes place on what was Run's birthday. Several of the filmmakers will be in attendance for discussion after the screening. The event is conceived, curated and hosted by Gareth Evans, who worked editorially on Animate! with Dick.

I'm Not a Feminist But...
Marjut Rimminen, 1986, 8 min

Watch out! If you insist on saying "I'm not a feminist, but...", then you may well find yourself pushing the old man over the edge, or behind the sofa  as the case may be. This witty polemic is adapted from the cartoons and drawings in the book of the same name by Christine Roche.

Extn 21
Lizzy Oxby, 2003, 9 min

A short film about one man’s desire to be heard, which uses an innovative blend of atmospheric stop-frame animation, live action performance (a stop-frame puppet with a live-action head) and digital effects to create a dark world of uncertain reality.

A Is for Autism
Tim Webb, 1992, 11 min

Based upon contributions and collaborations with autistic people which gave them, quite literally, a voice of their own, every design in the film originates from a drawing by a person with autism.

An Anatomy of Melancholy
Jo Ann Kaplan, 2000, 13 min

Accompanying images of the human body we hear the words of KeatsOde on Melancholy. A cinematic meditation on mortality.

Home Road Movies
Robert Bradbrook, 2002, 12 min

"No longer restricted to zone three of the local buses, our dad took us on motoring holidays of a lifetime". Using animation combined with treated album photographs, the film tells the real-life story of a shy and awkward father who desperately wanted the family car to make him a better parent.

Death and the Mother
Ruth Lingford, 1988, 10 min

When death takes away her child, a mother gives up everything to get her back. Death and the Mother is Ruth Lingford’s re-telling of a classic fairy-tale by Hans Christian Andersen.

Yours Truly
Osbert Parker, 2006, 8 min

Characters burst through yesterday's emulsion to tell the conflicting story of Frank and Charlie who sacrifice their morals to find what they truly love as worlds of live action and animation collide.

Rabbit
Run Wrake, 2005, 9 min

A dreamlike but dark story of lost innocence and the random justice of nature, told with curious images from a distant childhood. When an idol is found in the stomach of a rabbit, great riches follow. But for how long?


A special tribute programme as part of the London International Animation Festival

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Book

Magic in Marimekko Sunday 24.11.24 6:00 pm Book