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Alucinar

In a cold, lonely world, where buildings are like icebergs and people drift past each other on ice floes, Guy imagines belonging to a colony of penguins. From his window, he sees May, who also dreams of penguins. Inspired by the courage of penguins plunging off an ice floe into the unknown, he jumps off his own doorstep. Traversing dark waters, he searches the city’s streets looking for May. Connecting through their love of penguins, Guy and May are transformed. Overcoming their isolation, they face their world together.

This multimedia animated short combines stop-motion and digital animation with the icy beauty of Antarctica. In imagination, the characters enter the world of live action penguins and animated penguins also appear in their world. Music by David Cardona and Ian Kelk expresses the longing of the characters that they have no words to express.

  • Margie Kelk
    Director
  • Lynne Slater
    Director
  • Margie Kelk
    Producer
  • David Cardona
    Music
  • Ian Kelk
    Music
  • Ian Kelk
    Penguin Footage
  • Project Type:
    Animation, Experimental, Short
  • Genres:
    Stop motion, romance
  • Runtime:
    5 minutes 15 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    November 22, 2022
  • Country of Origin:
    Canada
  • Country of Filming:
    Canada
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Distribution Information
  • Vtape
    Distributor
    Country: Canada
Director Biography - Margie Kelk, Lynne Slater

Toronto-based visual artist Margie Kelk takes an exploratory and experimental approach as she appropriates and reconstructs visual fragments of ideas through diverse media that include ceramic sculpture, drawing, and animation. Recent one-person exhibitions include UnderSee at the Red Head Gallery (2018), reference:gesture (2017) at reference: contemporary, Toronto, Ontario; Substratae (2017) at Harcourt House Artist-Run Centre, Edmonton, Alberta and Counterpoise (2015) at the Red Head Gallery, Toronto, Ontario.

Margie Kelk’s first award-winning stop-motion animated film, Substratae (2015) has been featured in over sixty film festivals nationally and internationally, including The New Renaissance Film Festival, London, UK, Photophobia Contemporary Moving Image Festival, organized by Hamilton Artists Inc., the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, Ontario, and the New York State International Film Festival, in Albany, New York. She received numerous awards for Substratae, which include the Los Angeles Film Review Independent Film Awards Bronze Award, Los Angeles, CA, USA, and the Award of Excellence from the New Renaissance Film Festival, London, UK. UnderSee (2018), an animated film co-directed by Margie Kelk and Lynne Slater, has been screened in over 40 film festivals nationally and internationally including the Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival, Orange County Museum of Art, Santa Ana, California, USA; BlowUp Film Festival/ Chicago International Arthouse Film Festival, Chicago, IL, USA, and the Portugal International Film Festival at the Pestana Palacio do Freixo, Porto, Portugal.

In May, 2019, Survivor, a cast aluminum sculpture by Margie Kelk, was featured on the official Tumblr blog of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). Forthcoming exhibitions in 2020 include In:Flux at the Red Head Gallery, Toronto.
Margie Kelk is a graduate of Wellesley College, the Johns Hopkins University (PhD.), and the Toronto School of Art diploma programme. She is represented by reference: contemporary, Toronto and is a member of the Red Head Gallery, also in Toronto.
Filmography
Producer (4 Credits)

Lynne Slater is an artist-animator living in Scarborough Ontario, with a BASc in Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo and a diploma in Classical Animation from the International Summer School of Animation at Sheridan College. Her multimedia animation work includes stop motion animation and 2D animated special effects.

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Director Statement

Visits to Antarctica have instilled in me a real reverence for the frozen continent and its flora and fauna. Antarctica is a land of challenging adversity; penguins there are faced with many difficult tasks assuring their continued existence. The recent pandemic reminded me in many ways of these birds. People were isolating, yet trying to find solace in sharing virtual realities while living in cold, empty cities. I found atmospheric similarities between Toronto and Antarctica. Thus the genesis of Alucinar.