Private Project

The blind writer

The drawings of this film were made blindfolded, that is, without looking at them while drawing but using only tactile cues. This constraint deconstructs the individual drawings, which are then assembled into a whole in the viewer's mind. The film gropes along like a blind man. This reflects the writer’s perplexity, who questions dogmas and certainties. Faced with the complexity of the world, eternal questions concerning the relationships among people, political and metaphysical questions arise:
- Who created the universe?
- God.
- And who created God?
Faced with ready-made ideological answers, the writer admits his helplessness, his blindness is more metaphorical than real. What does “see” mean? Does what we see, the appearance, reflect reality? The viewer is called to provide his/her own answer. S/he is the one who will have to decide, as his perception does, by assembling the disparate lines of the drawings in order to make them meaningful.
In a world where communication has acquired special significance, where images and views are constructed on order, how can one discern what is substantial?
Is the candy edible or its colorful wrapping? The orange or its peel?
Paradoxically, the answer is not as simple as it appears.

  • Georges Sifianos
    Writer
  • Georges Sifianos
    Director
  • Georges Sifianos
    Producer
  • Jeanne Peylet Frisch
    Key Cast
  • Malo Martin
    Key Cast
  • Gustave Carpène
    Music
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    L’écrivain aveugle
  • Project Type:
    Animation, Experimental, Music Video, Short, Television, Web / New Media, Other
  • Runtime:
    10 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    August 19, 2021
  • Country of Origin:
    Greece
  • Country of Filming:
    France, Greece
  • Language:
    English, French
  • Shooting Format:
    1920x1080, H.264, 25i/s
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Black & White and Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • SIETAR Europa Virtual Institute Film Festival 2021
  • Lift-Off Global Network 2021
  • 4th Multicultural Film Festival, Toronto 2021
  • Mykonos Biennale September 28, 2021
  • IMARP - Mostra Internacional de dança - Imagens em Movimento - Video dança
  • Xposure International Photography & Film Festival / Nominee

    Nominee
  • Ojo Móvil Fest 2021
  • Hungarian Disability Film Festival Budapest
  • 5th INTERNATIONAL FOLKLORE FILM FESTIVAL 2022@INDIA
  • Tbilisi 2nd International Short Film Internet Festival "Diogenes 2021"
  • Paradise Film Festival Budapest
  • 25. International Film Festival ZOOM – ZBLIŻENIA
  • Parvaz International Film Festival Tehran
  • International Film Festival of Larissa / Prize of Best Animation film

    Prize of Best Animation film
  • Brazil New Visions Film Fest / Nominee

    Nominated
  • NQRVENTION
  • ANIMAC, the International Animated Film Festival, Lleida.
  • MONSTRA | Lisbon Animation Festival 2022
  • ROFİFE
  • T-Short Animated Film Online Festival 2022 / Jury Honourable mention

    Jury Honourable mention
  • Athens ANIMFEST 2022 / 1st Prize Experimental

    1st Prize Experimental
  • International Animated Film Festival ANIMOCJE
  • Bologna in Lettere 10th – Videopoetry / Semi-Finalist

    Semi-Finalist
  • Annecy Short film / Official selection 2022
  • Animafest Zagreb 2022 /Program "From the masters workshops"

    Invitation to participate in the program "From the masters workshops"
  • One Earth Awards/
  • 10th International Video Poetry Festival Athens
  • Hiroshima_Animation_Season_2022/ Jury’s Personal Pick Award, Min TANAKA

    Jury’s Personal Pick Award, Min TANAKA
  • 13th edition of Anibar International Animation Festival
  • CineSmart - International Film Festival with Cell Phones
  • Animist Tallinn
  • 26e festival international de courts métrages d’Aigues-Mortes (30) Écran Libre
  • Flickyy Monthly International Creative Fest
  • 48th edition of the FILMETS Badalona Film Festival
  • Flipbook Film Festival
  • Movimiento en Movimiento
  • Kursaal Film Festival San Sebastián 2022 (KFFSS)
  • Ojai Film Festival
  • Trebinje Film Festival
  • 2022 Taichung International Animation Festival’ (TIAF) Taiwan
  • EXPERIMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL 6th Edition (Barcelona- Argentina) / Prize of Best Animation

    Prize of Best Animation
  • Studio 7 IFF (Independent Film Festival)
  • VIP FEST
  • BUEIFF CHANNEL (Buenos Aires)
  • TFM, PINK LOVE FILM FESTIVAL 2022
  • Festival International De Cinéma Adapté De Montréal (FICAM)
  • Animasyros International Animation Festival
Distribution Information
  • Georges Sifianos
    Country: France
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - Georges Sifianos

Georges Sifianos, born in Greece, holds a PhD in animation aesthetics from the University of Sorbonne. He is a filmmaker and professor emeritus of animation at ENSAD in Paris, where he founded the Department of Animation Studies in 1995. He has lectured worldwide including universities in Europe, India, Korea, Japan and China.
As a member of PSL academic research group, SACRe (EA 7410), he is interested in the renewal of forms of animation cinema, particularly from the point of view of cognitive science. The blindfolded animation approach employed in “The blind writer” is part of this research. His other recent research interest concerns animation forms found on the Parthenon’s Frieze. His book Aesthetics of Animated Cinema received the 2014 "McLaren - Lambart" award for the best academic book by the Society for Animation Studies and the "Hemingway Grant" in 2015.
His filmography includes the animated films "SMILE", "SCENT OF CITY", "TUTU", "EGO" the feature-film documentary "PETROCHEMICALS, THE CATHEDRALS OF THE DESERT”, and the last one “THE BLIND WRITER”

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

This is the first time, to my knowledge, that a film has been animated entirely "blind". No drawing was looked at during the animation, but we could only find our way through the tactile sense. This technical challenge sought to materialize the experience of a blind man. The blindness in the film is a metaphor. Faced with the certainties of ideologies, the writer admits his doubts as in the maxim of Socrates, "I know that I know nothing". Surprisingly, the technical challenge works. The viewer's perception completes the action as in Impressionist painting, restoring continuity, a sense of gravity, elasticity and coherence in space...