Post 771 - The 2025 OIAF Notes - images to follow eventually!

The Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF)  September 24-28, 2025

Fall has its rituals - an evocation of joyous weeks of raking leaves, hoarding pennies to purchase Halloween treats, the annual roadtrip to Ottawa and getting ready for International Animation Day. In no time, the last goblin has gone, new gobbling begins in preparation for Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa and - pfft! - another year passed by and nothing done.  Well, that was fast, so goodbye!

But no, wait:  the OIAF - The Ottawa International Animation Festival, now eleventy zillion years old, under the guidance of the slightly younger Chris Robinson, a bon vivant, raconteur, and somnambulist giving Cesare a run for his money – this OIAF does have a history, a herstory, a theirstory and a layered story from walks and runs and terpsichorial moves of ever growing Ottawa and the open arms that embrace the mobile arts.  In short, the dance of animation. 

Driving (or riding) with ten hours of windshield time requires a sincere commitment to being conscious of many things, be it the frolic of fauna, the cold stare of radar, or (especially) the quick retrieval of personal papers proving the bearer to be bearable at the border.

There! 227 words already - the first 227 words are always the hardest.

And once upon the lands of the Anishinaabe, a stop first for the exchange of dolors to dollars revealed a maximum of $3000 for the process, lest notoriety becomes ascribed to this animated pilgrimage  - and then - only then could one truly breathe the rarified atmosphere of Tim Horton’s, poutine, and a sincerely, truly tapped pint of Guinness.  O Canada!  The pulse of McLaren, the NFB, Back, and Gould; the patina of Shatner and Candy, a lushly articulated vowel, the bite of a Letterkenny barkeep, the earlier sense of sunset, being not of a day’s end, but a night’s beginning.  O Canada, we stand on guard for thee! (Or, Protégera nos foyers et nos droits to lend balance to the appreciation).

So what did a forensic animator and a retired apothecary talk about for these ten hours?  Dungeons and Dragons, of course!  Sir Charles of Wilson is nothing if not an infused expert on DnD, while yr hmbl typst, albeit present at the near onset of the game while in high school, opted to look into it later. Well, fifty plus years later, Dungeons and Dragons became a fascinating discourse on this intricate and layered, profoundly vast, creative mental exercise ranging from casual play to quantum physics-level chess. I was especially impressed that a source for more information was called the Necrotic Gnome. That in itself was a major selling point.  

Canada immediately provided a first exposure to multi-colored Tesla options, to these eyes, anyway – in Michigan, they seem to be only available in white or an uncertain shade of gray, but in Canada even the gluon-mass cybertrucks were on Highway 417 in reds, blues, and greens.  It made me wonder if the US wasn’t becoming a dumping ground for the world’s left-overs, with determined, directed marketing to make things seem otherwise.
  
Even detours were picturesque en route to Ottawa - there was an antidote to Unkemptville in the carefully manicured lawns of Kemptville, and near Milla’s Corners, a painted lawn dwarf bore the deservedly victorious pronouncement, “Gnome More Cancer!”   

McGee’s Inn on Daly remained a perfect center to walk around Ottawa, with near-stage door access to the Bytowne Cinema, providing comfort, history, and superb breakfasts made to order.

So, since the Past is Prologue, let’s savor the layers we peeled from the sweet onion called OIAF. 

So Much Time, So Little To Do (no, wait, reverse that)
With four nightly parties, a full-service picnic with pumpkins, and constant hum of a nation’s capital, it was all the more astonishing that there were also continuous showings, retrospectives, producer pet projects, recruitment fairs, guides to updating portfolios, poutine palaces, Beaver Tails, art centers, museums, and drink-and-draws vying for attention – and everything, everywhere, all at once, seemed very well attended.  Retro tech seemed to be pronounced, with a frequent return to the old 1:33 ratios on screen, a wistful nod to sprocket holes that nobody ever saw in the days of 8mm film, and shout outs to 8-bit and raster over vector, victor.  Some animated highlights stood out (culled from notes written in the dark, so excuse the poor writing on the wall):

Joanna Quinn’s To Gaza, With Love: A Global Anijam provided snippets from the over three-hour September project to introduce early showings, with asides that Joel Spencer is not an owl, he’s an American, and that while “animation is an asylum to the soul, the festival is a great asylum.”
  
Richard Reeves’ Fusion, inspired by Norman McLaren, was not only drawn on film, but also had a soundtrack created that way, as he explained later, using spirograph images to build the background.  He took 200 feet of 35mm film, edited in a moviola, then to an mp3, and then drew the images on film to match the sound.  

Mamiko’s Poop, from Yasutero Ohno, was the ultimate extrusion of one’s expressive take that from a never-realized relationship.  And we are worried about the baby alligators flushed down toilets...

Across My Jaw was an example of a film-for-hire, created without much of a discernable budget for a band wanting a music video, using TV Paint and After Effects in post-production, with a loose spin on a Hans Christian Anderson story.  It had a three-month production schedule, wedged between other projects, and provided a 1970s TV animation look. 

Dollhouse Elephant, one of several first-time films shown at the festival, used colorful designs to show the interactions of inhabitants in an apartment house who have to learn to live together, but mistakenly think they are the story.  The filmmaker, Jenny Jokela of Finland, described it as an ex-boyfriend metaphor, where she thought of herself as the bad, inattentive girlfriend, adding it “started cringe but ended as a happy movie, because you have to have fun, or what’s the point?”

Allied Able was a commissioned animated work - ie, a commerical using Houdini and Blender as software, with the later discussion that very, very few commercials these days are actually animated, creating a bit of a vacuum in the festival circuits for films in this category (so, hint-hint, if you want a better chance at being selected, use the “commercial work” as your division for judging).  Christopher Rutledge and Dan Hanafin offered the suggestion to just do your film, “do some damage,” don’t fret about it, and just get it – and yourself –  out there to be seen.  

Marvin Houck from the Netherlands created States of Matter as his first film, using a micro slicer through paraffin containing small embedded objects, akin to experiments going back to Oskar Fischinger’s silent films, and then relied on happy accidents to make the image and sound work together, appreciating the music of Philip Glass and the visuals Koyaanisqatsi.  

The Girl Who Cried Pearls - From the producers of Madame Tulti Pulti  – it seemed like a classic European fairy tale, but it was an original story, inspired by the accidental spilling of pearls during a scene from Madame Tulti Pulti.  The film was an event in itself, but the discussion later was just as incredible in what it revealed – that Madame was a first effort that stunned its creators with its critical reaction, that Madame was the first time they had ever animated a walk cycle (and even that was put off for the final scenes), that both films were shot “on ones” (“We feel about shooting on twos the way we feel about half-pints”), how smoke effects were also built manually for a second layer of reality, that it was intentionally jammed with symbolism from start to finish, trying to create a fable akin to the tales where suffering leads to heaven;  that the puppets get larger as the filmmakers get older because, hey, it gets harder to see.  Then, later, as Chris Robinson joined Chris Lavis, the filmmaker added that a “third brain” evolves from a long collaboration where ultimately answering “why” in a film becomes completely secondary to the production, and that Maurice Sendak was not only a potty mouth, but about children he told the filmmakers, “For God’s sake, don’t teach them anything!”  The Girl Who Cried Pearls was seven years in the making for its seventeen-and-one-half minutes.

I Beg Your Pardon begins with a twisted premise - a man commits murder but cannot get people to see the obvious, right up to post-mortem celestial judgement.  John Lustig created his equally twisted ending, noting that “hell is more exciting” and that our societal hell is so distracted that it really doesn’t want to see what is going on.  The protagonist spends the entire film in regret and nobody seems to care.  The character designs are basic, still, piercing into the audience, but Mr. Lustig confessed it was because he was “a little bad at drawing.”  The murder with a stapler is also low-key - violence is never shown, but the splatter and incrimination is everywhere - perhaps a consequence of frequent true crime podcasts where the “guy gets away.”  It’s a haunting five minutes.

Joel Vaudreiul’s Cardinal was a music video, again on a shoestring, where he made use of fifteen years of experimentation in techniques that left a lot of cardboard lying around.  The music and animation is from “clips for the band I play in.”  Puppet designs were created on the fly, liking “the accidents” in a “lo-fi art” style (mouth movements are on a cut-out wheel of lip positions that swing back and forth beneath the character’s face).  There were many examples of music video animation in this OIAF, and frankly, the bands immensely benefitted by the creative visuals.   

Paradize, another first film, this one from Matea Radic, is populated with brilliant colors and unique character designs.  Ms Radic returned to Serejevo (capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina) after 30 years and the melancholy of her return is reflected in this surreal series of images, where damages to hearts and places is covered up but never repaired, and where cigarettes are still smoked as a part of breathing.  She didn’t want the story to be about the repression, but to evolve into what it wanted to be.  The omnipresent slugs are brought out as metaphor for trampled refugees, and the overall sense is what she expressed at the filmmaker’s meeting the day after the showing: “I don’t want to cry any more.”

Nichole Altan, noted by Chris Robinson as being the first animator from Mongolia in the history of the OIAF, shared a game familiar to her home, Anklebones.  Shortly before the 2025 OIAF began, ASIFA was approached by a collection of animators in Mongolia to begin a new chapter there; and, in fact, this particular film had not yet been shown in Mongolia as of mid-September of this year.  And the game “anklebones” is indicative of a society that wastes nothing - these are literal ankle bones, cube shaped, dice-like bones from native animals.  This film was a thesis film by Ms Altan, as part of her studies at RISD.

Don’t Make it a Song looked like a computerized piece, but the closing credits included “making of” glimpses of the elaborate sets constructed for the film by Stephano Bertelli.  Again, the film was more memorable than the music.  

Bread Will Walk was a zombie film where everyone is turning into bread, and familial sacrifices include feeding ones self to others - the closing song “All of Me,” was another level of detail that made this an audience favorite in the fifth series of short films.  Alex Boya created this jaw-dropper.

The 95-second Paul and His Friends was a colorful and manic encounter between humans, relationships, and pets by Rafael Esteban Trujillo.

67 Milliseconds was an indictment of police violence, with video camera footage being painstakingly dismantled to show that a bullet can travel faster than it can be photographed.  Here, a “non-lethal” projectile became deadly via a trigger-happy, undertrained policeman.  Coming back to the land of ICE after seeing this was very unsettling.  Fleuryfontaine of France created this spin on documentary animation.

A Taste of Beer by Xie Li was a breakthrough film for my festival experience.  China, noteworthy for earnest film productions, lush creative visuals, and exquisite details, now has an absurd film in the mode of  Luis Brunel.  Things occur because they occur, what happens on screen was validated because it happened on screen.  None of it made sense, but that was the intent.  We couldn’t take our eyes off this utterly absurd, animated motion picture.  In theory it is about a father being proud of his son brining home a soccer trophy.  

Two Point Five Stars by Sina Larf and Dario Boger of Switzerland gave the audience the impression that hostel life is more hostile than hospitable.  It was manic, fun, and utterly delirious, a two-reel Mack Sennett comedy squeezed into five and one-half minutes.
And a grumpy old cat, Existential Greg, in an extended close up lasting nearly ten minutes, had us bent over laughing and Will Anderson of England knew how to keep layering it on for the entire film.   

Versa, a very personal film by artistic director Malcon Pierce at Disney, was this year’s Between-the-Frames entry, with Mr Pierce creating a beautiful, heart-felt story of personal loss, wonderfully produced, with tears and tissues abounding, told as a metaphor between two gods who lose their first child before it can join their cosmos, but find it possible to conceive a new life.  They literally skate their way across the universe, and if something felt just a bit off, it was their overwhelming joy at their second attempt being successful, something that could have been infused with just a touch of melancholy, but that’s just the dark bile of yr hmbl typst typing.  It remains a gorgeously executed piece, with innovative uses of depth and color.  The fact that we couldn’t really figure which upcoming feature it would fit before emphasized the idea that, maybe, Disney could do a Fantasia 2030 to showcase some of these unique, uncategorizable short films.

Recruiter Discussion - Overall theme - Don’t Even THINK of using AI in your portfolio
Oh the notes that came from this breathless 60 minutes. 
Sheridan College was there - Guru and Brown Bag Studios were there - Laika was present, still committed to its “one-shot, no sequels,” business model of intellectual properties.  And all of them joined on one topic in AI - use it to help write your cover letter (“It’ll probably be much better”) but never, NEVER use AI to do your animating for you in your portfolio is you want to be taken seriously.  Your creativity, your innovation, your struggles, your stories are going to get you the notice you need for the hiring industry.  If you can show that you are creative, you are innovative, you are the storyteller, that will be far more effective in your animation career.  
Diversify your abilities, pay attention to the posted job descriptions, and if you ever get a portfolio review, and there are suggestions made to improve it, improve it because they’ll remember it if they ever see your portfolio again and you didn’t listen to them.  
“Be comfortable with being uncomfortable with yourself,” said Laika.
And yes, LinkedIn is apparently still a thing.  So get it, get it updated, and keep it current with your portfolio. 
Recruiters are human.  Really.  And if three recruiters have ten positions to fill and there are 6200 applications, it might take those three human beings a while to wade through that number.
Be gentle, be patient, and laser focus your portfolio to the job you are seeking.
If there are FAQs (frequently asked questions) on line, read them for god’s sake and know the answers before your interview because they were there for a reason to see if you were paying attention!
In the animation industry, the animation remains hands-on, and AI is for administrative purposes (again, use AI for your cover letter only!)
Don’t lose your ability to communicate.  
Make a film using timelapse with one of your projects - it will show your process - make the process part of your portfolio. 
Give your strongest material only to your portfolio - you don’t need “filler” but “focus”
No matter what, it never hurts to apply - the worst they can say is NO.  Learn to hear that word and not collapse.
Find out the workflow of your prospect - Laika is all ON SITE - no remote.  You may have to learn to be a nomad in your animation career. 
Also, with new productions, don’t be afraid of applying for an “animation supervisor” position - because they are the ones who will hire the animators.  If you don’t apply, find out if the one who is hired is someone you either know or can somehow contact.
Keep your eyes open, and remember your CV is a document of accomplishment, not a job description - consider the importance of “customer service” as a component in your work history.
And with that, we wandered to our next showing.

Feature films were also part of the saturated programming, and we made it to none, but one stood out as extremely promising, namely The Great History of Western Philosophy created by Aria Covamonas of Mexico.  Described as a “dada-ist” experience and satire of East/West philosophies, I have it on my track down list whenever it approaches the airspace around Edmore, Michigan.  The trailer is a 60 second searing-hot poker through the frontal lobes:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocn-WmiRynM

And while meeting with the filmmakers and producers amid reunions with old acquaintances was amazing, random encounters continued to create further mind-warps at OIAF - whether it was chatting with a woman who turned out to be Chris Robinson’s mother (yes, he has one, and does she ever have stories!), the aforementioned premiere animator from Mongolia, or a recent graduate – and new ASIFA Central member – from Detroits’s CCS who has not only a brilliant graphic style but an intense fascination for autopsies (she has since offered to sit in on mine, someday, sooner than never, but later than now.  I have her email tattooed on my left heel for proper notification - it reads, “Say Hi to Zoe!”).

Even with all this, we were barely able to take in a third of the wonders at this year’s festival. Overall, this year’s OIAF “nailed it” with strong films, great variety, phenomenal pumpkin carvations, and international enthusiasm for animation.  There were acknowledgments that the horizon was more than peppered with dark clouds, but for these few days, it was all about a better and brighter world with opportunities to shine everywhere.  It gave us something to look forward to in 2026.

OIAF Final Results
Grand Prize for Short Animation:  Il burattino e la balena (dir. Roberto Catani) 

Grand Prize for Animated Feature -Death Does Not Exist (dir. Félix Dufour-Laperrière) 
Honourable Mention:  The Great History of Western Philosophy (dir. Aria Covamonas) 

Wacom Public Prize - S the Wolf (dir. Sameh Alaa) 

CFI Award for Best Canadian Animation - The Girl Who Cried Pearls (dirs. Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski) 

Honourable Mention: We’re Kinda Different (dir. Ben Meinhardt) 

Hélène Tanguay Award for Humour - Poor Marciano (dir. Alex Rey) 

Animation Mentor Award for Best Narrative Short -  The Graffiti (dir. Ryo Orikasa) 

ASIFA International 65th Anniversary Award for Best Non-Narrative Short -  Green Lung (dir. Simon Hamlyn) 

Best Commissioned Animation - Desi Oon (dir. Suresh Eriyat) 

Bento Box Award for Best Student Animation - Poppy Flowers (dir. Evridiki Papaiakovou)

TVPaint Award for Best Canadian Student Animation - Lullaby for a Deathdream (dir. Charlie Galea-McClure) 

Animation for Young Audiences 7+ Competition - Les bottes de la nuit (The Night Boots) (dir. Pierre-Luc Granjon) 

Animation for Teen Audiences 13+ Competition  - Autokar (dir. Sylwia Szkiłądź) 

XPPen Craft Award for Best Animation Technique -  Fusion (dir. Richard Reeves) 

Best Sound Design  - Evacuations (dir. Lilli Carré)