2020 Short Film Challenge - German Cinema

I won't lie.

Many of my favorite films come from Germany. From the Expressionist Period with "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" and "Metropolis" to the works of Fassbinder with "Lili Marlene" and "Veronika Voss", I have loved the works of their filmmakers. It would only make sense that I would try to add them to the Challenge.

To begin, here is the list of those films already viewed:

Ghosts Before Breakfast (1928)
Zwei Sterben (2008, animated)
My Happy End (2007, animated)
Flamingo Pride (2011, animated)
Selfie from Hell (2015)
Demon Dawn (2016)
Cops & Robbers (2019, animated)

Of course, I looked into the silent era to find few short films by the major stars and directors of the time. Only Ernst Lubitsch had some shorts, which were not accessible. It seems that where other country's directors were making shorts, Germany was making features. So, on to modern times.

I started with several animated shorts:

Child (2016), about the need for adding wood to a fire defining the life of a person.

In the Distance (2015), a war is going on in the background, somewhere. A man living atop a building defends his life.

Wrapped (2014), mankind is gone and the plants take over.

The Risk Not Taken (2011), a sci-fi story taking place on another planet. I'm still not sure what happened here.

"Wind"

Wind (2013), life in a world that lives in a gale. This is very funny.

Red Rabbit (2007), a story about the secrets we keep that keep us apart.


After that, I found some live action shorts that were regarded enough to be nominated and/or to win the Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.

"Black Rider"

Black Rider (1993), a story of bigotry and appropriate revenge. Winner of the 1994 Oscar.

Kleingeld (Small Change) (1999), not to be confused with Francois Truffaut's classic about children. In this case, it examines the relationship between a businessman and the homeless man who begs near his office. Nominated for the 2000 Oscar.

Toyland (2007), a moment in time in Germany, during 1942. The story of two boys who do everything together. One is Jewish. He and his family are taken away to "Toyland", as the mother tells her son. Winner of the 2009 Oscar.

These films really need to be seen.

Two Filmmakers presented themselves.

Till Nowak

If you look up Herr Nowak's page on IMDb, there is a long body of work. Mostly, he could be found in the Art Department in such films like "Guardians of the Galaxy 2 & 3", "Thor: Ragnorok", "Black Panther", "Captain Marvel" and "The Lion King". He also directed three short films, all of which are on line.

Delivery (2005), a box is delivered to a man living alone that changes the world. Size really does matter. CGI.

"The Centrifuge Brain Project"

The Centrifuge Brain Project (2012), can intelligence in people be advanced merely by redesigning amusement park rides?

Dissonance (2015), a pianist walks between reality and the world in his mind. A seamless blend of CGI and real action.

All three of these films are a great view. The Brain Project makes you wish those rides were real.

Werner Herzog

How could I talk about German Cinema without visiting Herr Herzog? One of the most interesting and unique talents in film making, Herzog had several short films, three of which were accessible.

Herakles (1962). Jumping between a bodybuilder and real life, we are asked if this man could perform the 12 Labors of Hercules, shown in modern day terms. This is Herzog's first film.

Precautions Against Fanatics (1969). Set at a race track, we meet the men who protect the horses from Fanatics, or do we?

Nobody Wants to Play with Me (1976). Martin is reviled by his classmates, for reasons that the other children explain, but may not fully understand.

At some point, during the challenge, "Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe" will be watched.

A big Thank You to shortoftheweek.com, filmsshort.com, YouTube, and Vimeo, without whose caring for film, none of this would be possible. And, of course, Thanks to IMDb, for direction and information.

Watched so far: 72
Films to go : 428

Next week, I get to play among the cartoons again, in celebration of the Annie Awards, which are held on 25 Jan 2020.

2020 Short Film Challenge - Academy Award Losing Animated Shorts

At one time, I lived for the Academy Awards.

from Siqi Song's "Sister"

2019 Nominee

It was the only awards show I'd watch. Okay, on rare occasions I would tune into others, like that time Sly and the Family Stone were reunited and performing on the Grammy's. But that didn't happen often. The next day, I'd enter work, bleary-eyed, ears still ringing from acceptance speeches and the orchestra playing those who overstayed their welcome off the stage. It was wonderful.

Now, I don't watch the show and have only a passing interest in the winners. The only portion that I am interested in is the Animation Awards for Shorts and Features. Of this year's nomination, I have seen three of the shorts and four of the features. And tonight (17 Jan), I saw a likely candidate for the award next year, Makoto Shinkai's "Weathering With You."

So, this week, being the week the nominations came out, I thought it appropriate to view those films that did not reach the podium. So, let's begin with a list of the films that fit the category already seen.

It's a long list...

Films Seen:

A Wild Hare (1940)
Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt (1941)
Superman (1941)
Swooner Crooner (1944)
Mouse Wreckers (1948)
Jerry's Cousin (1950)
Lambert, the Sheepish Lion (1951)
The Tell-Tale Heart (1953)
From A to Z-Z-Z-Z (1953)
One Droopy Knight (1957)
Paul Bunyan (1958)
The Pink Blueprint (1966)
What on Earth! (1967)
The Selfish Giant (1971)
Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, Too (1974)
The Tender Tale of Cinderella Penguin (1981)
The Snowman (1982)
The Big Snit (1985)
Your Face (1987)
The Cat Came Back (1988)
A Grand Day Out (1990)
Blackfly (1991)
The Chicken From Outer Space (1995)
Mike's New Car (2002)
9 (2005)
The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello (2005)
One Man Band (2005)
Lifted (2006)
Oktapodi (2008)
Presto (2008)
This Way Up (2008)
The Lady and the Reaper (2009)
A Matter of Loaf and Death (2009)
Let's Pollute (2010)
La Luna (2011)
Adam and Dog (2012)
Fresh Guacamole (2012)
Head over Heels (2012)
Maggie Simpson in "The Longest Daycare" (2012)
Feral (2013)
Get a Horse! (2013)
Blind Vaysha (2016)
Borrowed Time (2016)
Pear Cider and Cigarettes (2016)
Pearl (2016)
Animal Behaviour (2018)
Late Afternoon (2018)
One Small Step (2018)
Weekends (2018)
Hair Love (2019)

Have I mentioned lately that I am a huge fan of Animation?

I will begin with an admission of guilt. I managed to see two other of this year's nominees (other than "Hair Love"). As they are currently nominees and not winners, I bent the rules a bit. They are "Sister", which may just win the award, and "Kitbull", a Pixar Sparkshort. All three nominees are excellent and still available online. I encourage you to see all three!!

For the most part, I aimed for films made from the 1930s to the 1950s.

George Pal

Many see Mr. Pal as the director of such films as "The Time Machine" and "The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao." But he was also the creator of Puppetoons!! Each year, from 1941 to 1947, one of his Pupptoons was nominated. None of them won. The ones I was able to find and view were:

Tulips Shall Grow (1942)
The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (1943)  Dr. Seuss!
And to Think that I Saw It on Mulberry Street (1944)  Dr. Seuss!
Jasper and the Beanstalk (1945)

His best know work, Tubby the Tuba (1947) was nowhere to be found.

Stephen Bosustow

Here's a name that few know, including your's truly. However, if you mention his most famous creation, Mr. Magoo, everyone knows who that is. He had nominations in almost every year from 1948 to 1957, landing on the podium thrice (1950, 1954 and 1956, where there were three films nominated, all by him). I managed to view six of his nominated films.

Rooty Toot Toot (1951)
Madeline (1952)  Yes! That Madeline!
Pink and Blue Blues (1952)  with Mr. Magoo
Christopher Crumpet (1953)
The Jay Walker (1956)
Gerald McBoing Boing on Planet Moo (1956)
Trees and Jamaica Daddy (1957)

Of these, The Jay Walker is one of the funniest ones out there. It's all about a man who becomes obsessed with jaywalking and the thrills he gets from it.

Max Fleischer

One of the early animators, Mr. Fleischer started out in Silents with Koko the Clown. He later brought to life the lovely, and often controversial, Betty Boop.  Although he never won an Oscar, he did bring Superman to the cinema, making a number of his adventures during the 1940s. These are available online and on DVD. Viewed were:

Educated Fish (1937)
Hunky and Spunky (1938)

Walter Lantz

Mr. Lantz was part of the MGM stable of cartoonist, with people like Fred Quimby, who had such great success with Tom and Jerry. Walter was no slouch in this department. He creations included Andy Panda and, of course, Woody Woodpecker. Sadly, he usually lost to either Walt Disney or Fred Quimby (who won 7 times). Viewed were:

The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company C (1941)  based on the song by The Andrews Sisters
The Dizzy Acrobat (1943) with Woody Woodpecker
Musical Moments with Chopin (1946) with Woody and Andy Panda, proving that Warner Brothers was not the only studio to make children listen to classic music.

There was a good deal of World War II themed animations that was viewed. George Pal's "Tulips Shall Grow" is about the invasion of Holland. "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" takes place in a boot camp. Also viewed were:

Peace on Earth (1939) by Hugh Harman of Harman-Ising fame.
How War Came (1941) a cartoon aimed to explain war to children
Blitz Wolf (1942) from Tex Avery, who was working at MGM at the time.

Rounding out the week was a visit to Will Vinton, whose Claymation was dominant in the 1980s, with four nominations and one win. Viewed were:

The Creation (1981)
The Great Cognito (1982)

And others viewed were:

Imagination (1943)
History of the World in Three Minutes Flat (1980)
Second Class Mail (1985) from the UK
Gopher Broke (2004)
We Can't Live without Cosmos (2014) from Russia

Number Viewed: 28
Total Viewed : 57
443 to go!

Thanks to YouTube, Daily Motion, Internet Archive, and Vimeo, who are carrying many of these films. And thanks to Wikipedia for some of the stats and a list of winners and nominees.

Next Week: I celebrate German Unification (18 Jan 1871) and try to find German short films.

Short Film Challenge - Days 1 to 5 (6 Jan to 10 Jan 2020)

A Week of Early and Later Animation (6 Jan to 10 Jan, 2020)

Celebrating the Birthdays of Emile Cohl (4 Jan 1857) and Hayao Miyazaki (5 Jan 1941)

Short Films seen prior to the Challenge:

Emile Cohl

Fantasmagorie (1908)
Affair of the Heart (1909)
The Dentures (1909)
En Route (1910)
The Automatic Moving Company (1910)
The Hasher's Delirium (1910)


Emile Cohl is one of the earliest animators in film historian. Aside from animated artistry, he was also a master of stop motion. His films are accessible on YouTube, as well as other sites like backtothepastweb.workpress.com, as well as a couple of pay sites like fandor.com.

Viewed during the week were

The Magic Hoop (1908)   which looks much like one of the films found in Dawson, Yukon. The middle of the film is horribly wrecked.

A Bad Cure (1909)
The Informing Hair (1911)
The Brain Retapper (1910)
Spanish Moonlight (1909)
The Puppet's Nightmare (1908)
A Love Affair in Toyland (1908)

The Little Chickens (1910)
which is stop motion with varied chicken statutes moving around the barnyard.

Floral Studies (1910)
This film was like those arts and crafts you did as a kid, cutting folded paper. This time by an animated pair of scissors. At the end, photos of world leaders like Victor Emmanual, Nicholas II, Ferdinand of Austria, Leopold of Belgium and Armand Fallieres of France.

The Puppet Looks for Lodgement (1921)
According to IMDb, this appears to be his last film.

Looking around, I located a Japanese animator, whose work bares some resemblance to Cohl's work, as well as the artwork of Jean Miro. His name is Mirai Mizue. His medium appears to be magic marker and paper, with some very interesting and intricate images. All can be found on YouTube. They are worth a view.  Seen were:

Wonder (2014)
Poker (2014)
Playground (2010)  lots of Miro images
Modern No. 2 (2012)  possible Cubist influence
Jam (2009)

After these, it seemed only natural to look at the stop motion, claymation and magic of Walter R. Booth, early British movie maker.  Viewed were:

Animated Putty (1911)
Artistic Creation (1901) which is very much Melies influenced
Animated Cotton (1909)
The Cheese Mites (1901)
Willie's Magic Wand (1907)

Scrooge, or Marley's Ghost (1901)
This is the first film adaptation of Dicken's work. Of the original 6 minutes 20 seconds, only 4 minutes 55 seconds still exists.

Other Animations watched include

A Peace of Coal (1910)
an unidentified silent with attributes that could either belong to Booth or Arthur Melbourne Cooper.

The Bead Game (1977)
Ishre Patel uses beads to tell a story in a short film that won the 1978 BAFTA for Short Films. A product of the National Film Board of Canada.

Hadao Miyazaki

Few can compare to the international treasure that is Miyazaki. Aside from the brilliant features, like the Oscar winning "Spirited Away", he has also made numerous short films. The problem is that these films can only be seen at Studio Ghibli; That is, unless someone sneaks a handy cam into the museum and films it.

Shorts already viewed:

On Your Mark (1995)
Mei and the Kittenbus (2002)
Mr. Dough and the Egg Princess (2010)


After some searching, I managed to find "Monmon, the Water Spider" (2006). The quality is not great, as this is a bootleg. But with these shorts, you are grateful for what you can get.

Another animator was found. Originally from China, Yawen Zheng now appears to be making films in California. The two that I viewed use pastel colors to tell stories of fantasy that are fairly tale in nature. They are quite beautiful and moving.

The Song for Rain (2012, China)
Every Star (2014, USA)


Others viewed:

The Acrobatic Fly (1910, by Britain's Percy Smith)
Un Petit Jules Verne (1907, by France's Gaston Valle)
Police in the Year 2000 (1910, by France's Gaumont Studio)

these films can be found on YouTube and Vimeo


Total seen:  29
Left to see: 471

This week, the Oscar Nominations are coming. The theme will be Animated Short Films Nominated, but Did Not Win!!