Abductees (1995)
Directed by
Paul Vester
Country: UK
Language: English
Color: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
Award: 1996 Won Best Short Film Catalonian International Film Festival, Sitges, Spain
imdb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0178214/
User Comments: Interesting little short that is presented well.
Using a mix of images, animation, interviews and hypnotherapy regression, the film shows the experiences and feelings of a group of people who claim to have been abducted by aliens.
This short film was on late on TV one night and I thought I'd give it a stab. The subject matter is always interesting and it is hard to do a really bad film on the subject and this short keeps to that rule by being inventive and punchy. The subjects all talk to camera or in voice over about their experiences while visually these are represented by a variety of styles of animation. This mix of talking heads (both in hypnosis and normal) works really well. I don't know if I was totally convinced as to the truth of the whole affair but there was so much going on that I didn't have a great deal of time to really to question all that I was seeing and hearing.
The animation is well done by several animators and it really helps bring the words to life. While there is obviously room for artistic license, the voiceovers match very closely with the visuals and they both manage to enhance each other and make for a better, fuller short.
Overall this is not intended to be a very factual short that makes a compelling case that this stuff is real, it simply presents testimony in such a way that is interesting and entertaining to watch and leaves it up to us to decide for ourselves – nothing is pushed down our throats or mocked – it just `is'. Worth a watch out of curiosity – there are better, longer films on the subject but this is short, punchy and involving.
Abductees (1995, Paul Vester) -(AUESS).avi 
Estória do Gato e da Lua (1994)
Directed by
Pedro Serrazina
Also Known As:
Tale About the Cat and the Moon
Runtime: 6 min
Country: Portugal
Language: Portuguese
Color: Black and White
Awards:
1996 Won Camério Best Short Film Carrousel International du Film
1997 3rd place Best Animation Film Dresden Film Festival
1996 Won Special Mention Best First Film Ottawa International Animation Festival
imdb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109748/
A poem. A tale made of silence and complicity. Light and shadows, the charm of the night, the moon as a passion... This is a tale about someone who tried to make the dream come true. This is the tale about the cat and the moon.
Estoria do Gato e da Lua - Tale About the Cat and the Moon (1995, Pedro Serrazina) -(AUESS).avi 
Lagodna (1986)
Directed by
Piotr Dumala
Also Known As:
A Gentle Spirit (USA)
A Gentle Woman (USA)
Gentle Spirit (International: English title)
Runtime: 12 min
Country: Poland
Awards:
1986 Nominated Golden Palm Best Short Film Cannes Film Festival
1986 Won Award of Merit Ottawa International Animation Festival
imdb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0242590/
Piotr Dumula's "Lagodna" was adapted from the same source as Bresson's "Une Femme Douce" (1969)- Dostoevsky's 1876 story "A Gentle Spirit" (aka "A Gentle Creature", "A Gentle Spirit"). The film begins with the ticking of a grandfather clock, a woman lying silently in a bed and a man watching her. Dumala animates the story (using heavy plaster plates) with effective use of fades, close-ups, extreme close-ups, and morphing of materials (partway through the film a tablecloth is pulled by the woman; in a fluid movement it has become the bedsheet from the opening scene. At different times the hands of the clock move backwards - once, moving forward the hands morph into the man. The woman screams and her face takes on the likeness of the Munch painting. A buzzing fly landing on the woman's face in the first sequence re-appears on her face toward the end - she makes no response. The man slaps the fly on her face - the room begins to fade leaving the man by himself on a chair. The clock continues to tick as we fade to an empty room...
Lagodna - Gentle Spirit (1985, Piotr Dumala) -(AUESS).avi 
Klub Odlozenych (1989)
Directed by
Jiri Barta
Also Known As:
Club of the Discarded (International: English title)
Runtime: 26 min
Country: Czechoslovakia
Color: Color
imdb: NONE
Jiri Barta uses live-action footage and stop-motion animation of crumbling department store mannequins to present a grim commentary on the regimented life of contemporary urban society in the overly long "Club of the Discarded."
It's long and repetitive, but has a couple of running gags that might appeal. A grim loft in a decaying building is home to a collection of old-fashioned mannikins, who live sysyphus-ish lives of clearly existential meaninglessness. One tries forever to hear something from a broken radio, another peeps through a crumbling wall at a naked dummy at a window. You get the drill. Eventually movers deliver a crate of modern mannikins with wild hair, sexually explicit features and extreme facial expressions, which leads to a predictable clash of lifestyles. A violent orgy of mannikin murder results in the creation of a hybrid race of dummies made from mix'n match parts. They now can watch TV. Obviously allegorical and 'meaningful,' the one is still a chore to watch despite some handsome photography.
Klub Odlozenych - Club of Discarded (1989, Jiri Barta) -(AUESS).avi 
Ape (1992)
Directed by
Julie Zammarchi
Runtime: 6 min
Country: USA
Color: Black and White / Color
imdb: NONE
"Ape"is a surrealistic film depicting a couple's de-evolutionary nightly ritual.
Julie Zammarchi has produced three independent animated films, several films for television, countless commercials, and two children. She currently teaches animation at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Two unpleasant people argue about their daily meal, which consists of one cooked monkey. Eventually the subject comes 'round to an accusation that the wife is having sex with the monkey corpse before chow time; it's not as shocking or as provoking as it sounds, but more of a mentally oppressive expression of human relationships. The color style changes for a moment where the wife garnishes the monkey with a flower, so the tone isn't all ugly faces and off-putting dialogue. Savant has seen some intentionally horrid & nasty animations (thanks to some unscheduled awfulness at Savant Secret Cinema) and this is neither that bad nor without possible merit. However, the film might be a good icebreaker for a get-together of uncommunicative serial killers.
Ape (1992, Julie Zammarchi) -(AUESS).avi 
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