The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) Hothouse 13 returns to Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival to showcase six world premieres of animated shorts produced through its Hothouse program, which brings together emerging animation talent from across Canada.
Kickstarting careers of acclaimed animators from across Canada have been helped by NFB’s Hothouse program, now in its13th season in Montreal.
In the past 18 years, over 50 animators have come through this program including Patrick Doyon, Paloma Dawkins, Philip Eddolls, Anne Koizumi, Alex Boya, Malcolm Sutherland, Eva Cvijanovic, David Barlow-Krelina, and the creative duo of Dale Hayward and Sylvie Trouvé.
The theme for this year’s Hothouse was “100,” which the animators were free to use as a quantifying descriptor, a playful graphic element, a musical guide, or just a creative jumping-off point.
The schedule os the program is as follows:
Friday, July 15, 8 p.m. EDT:
Montreal’s Noncedo Khumalo’s 100 Ghosts has been chosen to help kick off the festival in “The Amazing Opening Night” program, presented as part of Les Fantastiques Week-Ends du Cinéma Québécois.
Electronic Press Kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/100-ghosts.
The synopsis of the film is that a woman awakes to mysterious sounds and confronts a surprisingly surreal world summoned forth by her innermost fears.
Raised in Swaziland, South Africa, and Botswana, Khumalo a graduate of Concordia’s animation program, Noncedo’s student film, Continuum, was hailed by Cinema Politica as a gorgeous, animated vision of Black queer community amd won the York University Award for Best Student Work and was programmed by Mubi.
Saturday, July 16, 8:30 p.m. EDT:
Lukas Conway’s Bang will be featured in the “Outer World” program, presented as part of Les Fantastiques Week-Ends du Cinéma Québécois.
Electronic Press Kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/bang
The synopsis of the film reveals the frenzied attempt of a lonely man drum his head against the wall to break the isolation, which unleashes a battery of brightly colored hallucinations.
Born in Cranbrook, British Columbia, and currently based in Montreal, Lukas Conway, a graduate of Concordia’s animation program co-directed End of Recording, which won the Ottawa International Animation Festival’s Best Student Animation Award. Post, his most recent animated short won the Best Documentary Award from the Yale Student Film Festival.
Friday, July 29, 8 p.m. EDT:
Louis Bodart’s 100 Miles, presented as part of Les Fantastiques Week-Ends du Cinéma Québécois hits the road in the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to Comedy,”.
Electronic Press Kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/100-miles
The synopsis of the film showcases a hilarious family road trip kids act up in the back seat and constantly asking Are we there yet?
Quebec filmmaker Louis Bodart, a graduate of Concordia’s Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, earned widespread acclaim for his thesis film, Teddy Bear Rescue, which won awards from Feel the Reel, Short to the Point and Les Percéides festivals.
Saturday, July 30, 5 p.m. EDT:
Three more Hothouse films will also be presented as part of Fantasia’s Circo Animato program:
Baek-il by Grace An
Electronic Press Kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/baek-il The
The synopsis of this film presents the Korean legend of Ungnyeo, a bear reborn as a woman, becoming a mesmerizing status on the themes of transformation and quarantine.
Toronto filmmaker Grace An, a graduate of Concordia University’s Film Animation program and is now a Master of Fine Arts candidate in the Interdisciplinary Art, Media & Design program at OCAD. Her credits include Papier Accordéon, part of the NFB series Otherly for Instagram Stories.
Lo 100to, by Karla Monterrosa
Electronic Press Kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/lo-100to
The synopsis of the film presents Delia’s announcement of a breakup on group chat being bombarded with inappropriate and comic remarks from her Salvadoran family.
Born and raised in San Salvador, El Salvador, Karla Monterrosa and living in Vancouver at present studied traditional drawing techniques at the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design in Washington, D.C., and obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts in animation from the Emily Carr University of Art + Design. She has exhibited throughout the Americas.
The Commute, by Tarun Padmakumar
Electronic Press Kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/the-commute
Presented in the synopsis of the film is kicking off a zippy tale of bike theft and survival in an unfamiliar new town in a the distinctive three-note chime of the Toronto subway
Born in Kerala, India, Tarun Padmakumar studied in the Film and Video program at India’s National Institute of Design. After moving to Toronto, he continued his studies at Sheridan College, where he specialized in digital character animation and has worked as a 3D animator with Toronto’s Guru Studio and Industrial Brothers. He has been part of the team behind animated children’s series like Remy & Boo and Sesame Street Mecha Builders.
The Hothouse team:
Howie Shia, the acclaimed animation filmmaker is this year’s mentoring director. Her directorial credits with the NFB include the Canadian Screen Award-nominated shorts BAM (2015) and 4 North A (2020), which he co-directed with Jordan Canning.
Maral Mohammadian is a producer with the NFB English Program’s Animation & Interactive Studio in Montreal. Her recent productions include the shorts Hideby Daniel Gray, Impossible Figures and Other Stories I by Marta Pajek, and Paloma Dawkins’ VR work Museum of Symmetry.
Johanne Ste-Marie, co-founder of the art collective Fluorescent Hill is the associate producer of Hothouse 13.
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