‘Comics are a special kind of literacy as the language of comics makes it helpful for one to learn the world, if not alphabets.’ Max Andersson .Animation Film Maker Interact With Media in IFFI

Eminent animation film-makers of the ‘Sketches on Screen’ segment in the 44th IFFI discussed their content and craft with the media person.  Seth Scriver and Shayne Ehman from Canada along with the Swedish comic creator, Max Andersson were present. During the interaction, they explained comics as a medium which may be used artistically. Max Andersson agreed, ‘comics are a special kind of literacy as the language of comics makes it helpful for one to learn the world, if not alphabets.’ He found the trend of using animation even in documentaries an important development.  Shayne Ehman and Seth Scriver, discussing the mass marketing of animation films, said justice can be done to such films even without big budget. Andersson voiced the same feeling saying, ‘big budget may sometime limit creativity.’  Toronto-born Seth Scriver’s solo animation has been exhibited at the Images Festival in Toronto and the Impakt Festival in Utrecht. His co-director, Shayne Ehman has his work exhibited internationally for twenty years. ‘Asphalt Watches’, which features in the segment, is their debut directorial project. In the film characters range from sweetly creepy to downright gross and dangerous. It unfolds the story about Skeleton Hat, a scuffy grey dude in a burnt-out trapper’s cap and Bucktooth Cloud, a droopy-eyed transparent blob in a crumpled top hat. The film won Toronto International Film Festival Award for the Best Canadian First Feature Film.  After directing and producing a number of award-winning short films, Max Andersson turned to comics in the late 1980s. In his films, a mix of ink-black existentialism and pictopoetic slapstick explores the physical and metaphysical landscapes of life. He directed ‘Tito on Ice’, a part of the ‘Sketches on Screen’, with Helena Ahonen. In the film, two Swedish comic creators, to promote their book, tour the countries of former Yugoslavia with a mummified Marshal Tito in a refrigerator. They encounter a number of artists and intellectuals populating the post-Yugoslav indie cultural scene to find that truth may indeed be stranger than fiction.