Karen Ponzio Photos.
A still from Oxide.
A woman on the run shares a cigarette with a chicken. A family portrait elicits a daughter’s memories of familial tensions. Three friends navigate the challenges of working to pay the rent when they would rather party. All of these stories and more were told in various animated styles, including stop motion, painting, and Procreate at the 2024 Womanimation event, presented this past Saturday by MergingArts Productions at Best Video in Hamden.
The central Connecticut-based company “produces cultural events and radio programming reacted to both music and visual arts, reaching out to communities both local and global” according to their website. The film festival, in its 14th year, is “the premier showcase in the United States of international women’s animation,” featuring short animated films of various lengths created by women from all over the world.
According to co-directors Toni P. and Paul E., many of the films being shown on Saturday were premieres: all were Connecticut and East Coast premieres and most were U.S. and international premieres. Awards would also be handed out, one being a jury award (the jury comprised of women musicians from MergingArts Global Radio) and the other an audience award from votes cast at the festival, which had three showings at 1:30, 4:30, and 7:30 p.m. A table was set up at the front of Best Video with ballots listing the films and short descriptions of their content, which attendees could use to choose their three favorites for award consideration.
Before the program began, a reel was played that featured not only information about MergingArts’s other programming — including its next film festival, which focuses on short features, and its radio shows — but also stills that included artists participating in the festival. After most of the seats had been filled, Toni came to the front of the room to welcome everyone.
The voting ballots ready to be cast.
Part of the slideshow prior to the films.
“Clap if you’re here for Womanimation 2024,” she said, and received applause. “Now clap if you’re not.” She then asked those who were not if they were being “pulled in.”
“This is where the cool kids are,” she said with a smile. “We’re all about films and music,” she added after she described how she had reached out to Rai Thayer and Best Video with interest in having the festival there. After a short description of what MergingArts was about and how the voting would work, she introduced a short filmed musical performance by Mariana Masetto, an Argentinian musician, singer, and songwriter who has been featured in other MergingArts programming.
Masetto appeared on screen on an all-white set alone with her instruments, pedals, and microphone. After speaking about the festival and her gratitude for being a part of it, she shared four songs, including originals such as “Pulsar” and “Coihue,” as well as “La Vida Mia,” a traditional song from Argentina. Lyrics appeared to her left and right as she sang, floating in and out of the frame as she offered a warm and joyful beginning to the proceedings. Masetto’s inviting nature set a tone that had this reporter wishing that more films had a musical prelude.
Mariana Masetto.
The films came next, 14 in total. The first film, Touch, a colorful film from Ukraine directed by Anastasiia Martyniuk about making a connection, ran for only one minute. The black-and-white sharply drawn Spanish film Felina — directed by Maria Lorenzo — about a woman who might also be a panther (or a panther that might also be a woman?) ran 12 minutes. The total time of the films came to 85 minutes, which flew by as each one captivated the audience for completely different reasons.
Four films used stop-motion animation to each create a completely different vibe. Becarius (Interns), directed by Spain’s Marina Donderis, Nuria Poveda, and Marina Corton, about three friends, captured the stress of trying to make ends meet while also wanting to be free to have fun, with a multitude of moments eliciting laughter from the crowd. Camping, a Canadian film directed by Sacha Michaud, tackled the subject of being unhoused, not just in the difficulties of finding housing, but the oft-encountered lack of empathy for those in this situation. The Argentinian film Bar La Matanza focused on a woman’s struggle with the image of herself that others have helped her create and changing that image to be more of who they have always wanted to be. Two creatures met and dealt simultaneously with separation and connection in the Belgian film Oxide, directed by Emma Daelman.
A still from Felina.
Two films took the viewer into a daydream-like state of wonder and possibility. 3:12 PM Wednesday, directed by Jin Woo with a trippy, beat-heavy soundtrack by Yoonseok Hoo, saw the protagonist changing from bird to fish and back again, while the film Porous, directed by London’s Cecilia Reeve, turned a bathtime into a place to test the boundaries of time.
Two 2D films about two different children both struggling made a big impact in their short run time with stunning visuals. Daughter in the Family Portrait, directed by Taiwan’s Peng Yu-Wen, used blacks, whites, and grays to convey the personal story of a young girl and her familial discord. Goodbye People, a Russian film directed by Anna Klimanova, used soft and warm colors to portray a young boy’s efforts to escape his own troubles at home.
A still from Daughter in the Family Portrait.
Deeply personal narratives were also the focus of three more films. In Les Oiseaux (The Birds), directed by Belgium’s Christel Hortz, a daughter told the story of her mother in a poetic prose matched with visuals that used animation and objects to capture the difficulty as well as the beauty of growing older and seeing your parents in a completely different light. Sleepless Nights, directed by France’s Janis Aussel, used paper cutouts and paintings to visualize the stories of those who suffer from sleep disorders. In Ice Lolly, directed by India’s Vaishnavi Laddha, a daughter turned her experience living one way into a mantra to live another, savoring life’s every moment.
One of this reporter’s favorites was the film Chicken, directed by Germany’s Anna Benner, which offered the unexpected meeting up and parallel lives of a woman and a chicken (no, that’s not a typo). A shared pain and a shared cigarette became a shared desire to burn it all down, casting a bright light on a very dark subject with a hopefulness that one can begin again.
A still from Les Oiseaux (The Birds).
And while the themes ranged from darker subjects to dreamier, lighter ones, each film used its short time to create a lasting effect.
The program ended with Toni again expressing gratitude to everyone and reviewing the voting process while collecting ballots and reminding everyone about Vittles, the woman-owned food truck that was outside offering a variety of delights. This reporter got a cup of mac and cheese topped with a copious amount of crumbled bacon to go, but not before Toni mentioned that they would know the winners by Sunday. Those winners ended up being Becarius for the audience award and Les Oiseaux for the jury award. The mac and cheese, and the entire event for that matter, were winners as well.
For more information about Womanimation as well as other MergingArts Productions programming please visit the company’s website.