The Animation Pimp

Last year, my Love and Theft cd got destroyed in Kelly’s car accident the day before the OIAF. This time I took the cd out of the car. Better still, Bob’s Christmas record comes out today. Who’d a thunk it? The OIAF and a Dylan Xmas the same week.

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For once I have nothing to say opening night. It just doesnt feel right this year.
All I think about right now is my late friend Barry Doyle. We’d always meet just before the festival. It was like sitting in the dressing room with your trainer before you headed out to fight. B would always fill me with confidence.

He was involved in a festival too a few years back. The B man was a great writer/thinker. He didn’t know squat about animation but when I approached him to write a few articles on some animators I had no doubt that he could handle it well. And he did. He wrote texts on Co Hoedeman, Georges Schwizgebel and Janie Geiser. They were deeper and better written than some texts by more experienced animation writers.

Mostly I think of opening night Ottawa 06. I was sitting at the opening party. Someone approaches me and says that there’s someone outside asking for me. I go out and there’s Barry. “Hey Buddy,” he says. “Here,” He hands me a ticket to the Toronto-Ottawa hockey game —-that just ended. “I bought you a ticket then remembered that the festival was on.”

“You drove all the way across fuckin’ town to give me a ticket to a game that just ended!”

“Well I just wanted to see you and make sure things were goin okay.”
maybe it seems to most readers like a minor, strange moment, but it was those moments that summed Barry up for me, those moments that made him a brother to me. He was unexpected. He’d just show up out of the blue, buzz into your life to remind you that he loved you.

The programming this year seems to reflect this loss. Competition 1, as you will see, takes you on a little journey from the beginning to the end and, maybe, beyond. Priit Parn’s feature film Life without Gabriella Ferri, for all it’s absurdity and game playing, is, for me, a film about grief, loss and new found love and hope. Then there’s the incredible Up, a film that celebrates love, the importance of grieving, remembering and finding new friendships and experiences.

Festivals are like that for me. Yes, it’s the films, their stories and the voices of their creators that bring us together, but more than that the festival is about friendships and experiences. That’s what we remember about them. We remember the parties, the flirts, fucks, bars, drinks, picnics, puking, hangovers, laughs, embarasments, loves and friends.

That’s it. That’s all. That’s enough.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 6:49 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.