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Photos from Manifest finale!

After seven years, I ran my last Manifest: Animation Show & Tell on Tuesday evening. It was a stream broadcast from our long-standing venue here in Rotterdam, WORM, and I was joined via video call by Robert-Jonathan Koeyers who won the medal for most frequent ‘show & tell-er’ at Manifest. We were also joined by a lovely international audience chiming in via the chat box. If you missed the stream, you can watch it back here (along with the 11 previous archived streams, with such guests as Nikita Diakur, Chintis Lundgren, Boris Labbé, and more). Make sure you watch the stream until the end, so you can see the Thank You video listing every person who has participated in some way or another in Manifest over the years. If you ever shared a clip, look for your name!

For this special final event I talked about one of my favorite films ever, Places Other People Have Lived by Laura Yilmaz. We also talked about other memorable films that we remember seeing at Manifest. Every link we looked at can be found in the video description of the saved stream. 

Thank you to Hosein Danesh for these photos! If you’re in Rotterdam, keep an eye out for the upcoming WORM event called Words & Pictures (should start in April 2022). Thank you all for attending, contributing or watching. It’s been a wonderful seven years!

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Update: final event now streamed!

LIVE LINK: https://vimeo.com/event/1597443

Well, as you have probably guessed, the new COVID-19 measures here in the Netherlands have affected us as well. We were planning to do a final event in person, but it is not to be. However, the silver lining is that we can be joined by all the worldwide friends we've made over the past 18 months. So we are planning a stream that will include animation (of course), but also fun fake awards and a chance to hear from you, in either text or video messages! It will happen on Tuesday, December 7th at 19:00. You can contribute by VOTING FOR: 1. the best film you saw at Manifest! We will watch the winner during our final event. Some titles that come to mind for me are 'Born in a Void' by Alex Grigg, 'We Can't Live Without Cosmos' by Konstantin Bronzit, Kevin Dart's circular nature film, that music video for Gwilym Gold by Kevin Bray, Umbra by Malcolm Sutherland, 'Neon Genesis Evangelion' or 'É in Motion No. 2' by Sumito Sakakibara. This should be a 'main' film that we have watched together (as opposed to just brought up in passing). The easiest way to find the list of all the films we watched at an event is to go to the Manifest website - the list is linked in the posts with the photos right after an event. 2. the film (or show & tell-er) that generated the most memorable discussion! I'm thinking of 'Uproar in Heaven', where we talked about the history of Chinese animation with Yi Zhao, or 'My Darling's Shadow' by Connor Whelan (brought in by Bruna Sanchez) where we talked for ages about what actually happened in the film. Or Roey Tsemah who demonstrated oscilloscope techniques. 3. the film that was brought up the most often in conversation! I'm thinking of 'Mind Game' by Masaaki Yuasa, 'Dimensions of Dialogue' by Jan Svankmajer, 'Going to the Store' by David Lewandowski, 'Hedgehog in the Fog' by Yuri Norstein.

And finally, send me your thoughts about Manifest! Either in text form (a direct message that I will read out during the stream), or a video message that will be played during the stream (less than 1 minute long please!). I'd love to know what Manifest has meant to you, if you met anyone there that you are now working with, if you learned something that changed your way of thinking, what you hope for the future of animation in Rotterdam. Send 'em in! Send an email to ManifestAnimation@gmail.com or else send a DM to the FB Page or Instagram account.

If you somehow missed the original announcement about the ending of Manifest, you can read a long message about it here.

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Goodbye Manifest: Tues, Dec. 7th in Rotterdam!

After over 50 in-person events in Rotterdam, 3 live streamed (only) events and 11 live streamed (and archived) events, Manifest: Animation Show & Tell will have its last hurrah on Tuesday, December 7th. It will be an in-person event at WORM in Rotterdam, the first since February 2020. (FB event here).

A message from Tess:

I started Manifest in October 2014, soon after moving to this fair city. Our first three events were at Roodkapje (I’ll be forever grateful for their help) and we’ve been hosted at WORM since January 2015. Over the past seven years Manifest has grown to be its own special type of event: part networking/meet up for animators, part educational talkshow for practitioners and fans alike, and 100% inspirational films & conversation. At Manifest there’s something for everybody: each evening three people share an animated clip that they didn’t make themselves and explain briefly why they like it, prompting a discussion with the whole room, which includes, yes, youtube rabbit holes. Because of my very wide definition of animation, we may look at experimental work, studio work, commercial work, stop-motion or CG. Anything goes! And because the guest presenter is not the author of the work, everyone can be free to share their opinions, positive or negative. There have been some memorable conversations over the years.

When the pandemic started, WORM and I took up the challenge, and I really enjoyed being able to have both guests and audience members from outside Rotterdam. At one point we managed to connect Naomi van Niekerk in Johannesburg, Webster Crowell in Seattle, and Jonatan Schwenk in Berlin along with myself in Rotterdam for a live stream! Soon after we switched to one guest at a time for the online events, because we all realized that 2 hours was too long. You can still watch our last 11 live streamed (2.0) events on WORM’s vimeo showcase here, with guests such as Bryan Newton from Los Angeles, Nikita Diakur from Germany, Chris Sullivan from Chicago, Cristóbal León from Chile, Boris Labbé from France, and more.

I have very much enjoyed my role as host and conversation moderator, and I have met some wonderful people through this endeavor. I would like to thank all the people who made Manifest possible over the years, from our designer Oana Clitan, who made new graphics every month, to all the photographers who documented the events, both in-person and live streamed, and of course, WORM, whose technicians always made sure the projection and lighting (and then streaming) was the best it could be. And, last but not least, all the people who participated in Manifest as a ‘show & tell-er’, choosing a clip they wanted to focus on, starting off our conversations, and to all who attended.

The past 18 months have been an opportunity for reflection for many people, myself included, and I’ve realized that the time has come for me to move on. As much as I love bringing people together, my own artistic career has become a bigger priority, and, for now, at least, it needs more of my time and focus.

Manifest has always been a no-money event, partly because I wanted it to be free to attend, so everyone could access it, and partly because we look at clips that, though already publicly available online, do not belong to those presenting them. This is part of what makes Manifest great, but it also means that everyone involved is working for drinks. There could be a way to change the format to make it more sustainable, but then it wouldn’t really be Manifest anymore. At that point, I would rather invite someone else, someone with the time and energy, to start their own event, with their own preferred format, that serves their own community’s needs in the best way.

Along those lines, I have it on good authority that WORM will soon be launching a new event series that, though it won’t be focused exclusively on animation, will include animation as part of it (alongside other related disciplines like comic art, poetry and spoken word). So keep an eye out for that!

Join me on Tuesday, December 7th at WORM for our very last, very special, farewell-Manifest event. The time is still to be determined, but mark your calendars, it will be in the evening. We will have the chance to watch and talk about some animation as usual, and then we’ll have a longer drinks session afterwards. All covid-safe of course, so this is the plan, but it is subject to change.

- your host, 

Tess Martin

www.tessmartinart.com

Insta: @tessmartinart

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Missed a stream?

If you missed one of our live streamed animation discussions, you can watch them all back here, on the Vimeo page for our venue, WORM. All the links we looked at are posted in the video description. Manifest will be taking a break for a few months over the summer, in the meantime, if you have any suggestions for potential guests to invite, send an email to ManifestAnimation@gmail.com!

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Photos from Manifest with Robert-Jonathan Koeyers!

Photos are in from Friday’s event with Rotterdam filmmaker Robert-Jonathan Koeyers. Because he’s local (to us), our photographer extraordinaire Hosein Danesh was able to take photos of him at his home, as well as the set up on our side at WORM. Nice to see myself in a monitor for a change!  If you missed our conversation you can watch it back here. We talked about Jessica Ashman’s inspiring 2017 film ‘I Don’t Protest, I Just Dance In My Shadow’. We had a super nice conversation about films that take a personal approach to a subject (in this case, being a Black artist in white spaces) but somehow make it feel ‘cosmic’ or universal (up to a point of course). Whether we, as filmmakers, make work with a specific audience in mind or not, how best to connect with viewers, and whether we have to care about them at all. All the links we looked at are posted in the video description. Stay tuned for our next event announcement!

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Manifest: Friday, June 4th with Robert-Jonathan Koeyers!

LINK TO LIVE EVENT: https://vimeo.com/event/353758

Super chuffed to have Robert-Jonathan Koeyers back to talk animation inspiration at our next Manifest, Friday, June 4th, 19:00 (Rotterdam time - 18:00 in London, 1PM in NYC or 10AM in LA/Seattle). Jonathan is a local Rotterdam filmmaker, animator, and friend of Manifest. He has an open-minded mixed media approach to his own work, including for the film he is currently working on, titled ‘It’s Nice in Here’. He has been working on it since 2018 and he happens to be crowdfunding for the finishing funds right now! The last day of the funding will be on June 5th, the day after Manifest, so come watch the show, and then click through to Cinecrowd to contribute. You can see a bit of the process in Jonathan’s funding video below:

A bit more about Jonathan: he studied animation at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam and graduated with a visual poem titled ‘Here’ (2018) for which he was awarded a Threshold Award.

From a very early age, Robert-Jonathan knew he wanted to tell stories in whatever way he could. Throughout the years he has been using film, photography, animation, music, and other mediums to help turn his ideas and stories into tangible projects that people could relate to. Often deeply personal, nostalgic and introspective, his work often sets out to explore and dissect the human condition and tries to examine why we work the way we do.

Even though Jonathan is local (to me), we will still be doing this event streamed online (here). It’s a great chance for those of you around the world to meet him, but also for all the locals to say ‘Hi’. If you join live, you can contribute to the conversation via the chat box. 

Stay up to date on the Manifest FB, Twitter or Insta, or sign up for the Manifest newsletter.

And thank you as always to Oana Clitan for our graphic design!

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Photos from Manifest with Chintis Lundgren!

If you missed my live streamed conversation with Zagreb-based animator Chintis Lundgren last Friday, you can find it here. We discussed the short film ‘Moxie’ by Stephen Irwin, how films can run the range between dark, but vulnerable, to dark, but just shocking/gratuitous and how that vulnerability is brave and creates relatable films that actually have an effect on the audience. Thank you Chintis and everyone for attending, and also to Hosein Danesh for these lovely photos. All the links we looked at are posted in the video description. Stay tuned for our next event announcement!

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Manifest: Friday, April 30th with Chintis Lundgren!

LINK TO LIVE EVENT: https://vimeo.com/event/353758

Very happy to be joined by Zagreb-based animator/filmmaker Chintis Lundgren for our next animation discussion! Chintis makes poignant, funny short films, so I’m super curious what she will bring to talk about. Watch her award-winning (and furry-positive) short film Manivald below:

Chintis Lundgren is an Estonian-born animator currently living in Croatia. Self-taught, Lundgren’s body of work includes an assortment of quirky music videos, PSAs and short films featuring a light, absurdist tone along with distinct anthropomorphic characters. In 2011, Lundgren created her own animation studio called Chintis Lundgreni Animatsioonistuudio and later co-founded Adriatic Animation, an animation studio based in Croatia.

Her films (including the award-winning shorts, Manivald (2017) and Life with Herman H. Rott (2015)) have screened at numerous international festivals including Sundance, Annecy, Animafest Zagreb, Hiroshima and Ottawa.

Join us here on April 30th! If you tune in live, then you can contribute to the conversation via the chat box.

Stay up to date on the Manifest FB, Twitter or Insta, or sign up for the Manifest newsletter.

And thank you as always to Oana Clitan for our graphic design!

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Photos from Manifest with Cristóbal León!

If you missed my conversation with Chilean artist Cristóbal León (one half of the collaborative duo responsible for the 2018 feature film The Wolf House) about recently passed animation master Bruce Bickford, you can find it here. We focused on Bruce’s 1988 claymation Prometheus’ Garden, but also covered topics like narrative (or lack of), film vs. art world and how you have to be a ‘pirate’ to get things made when your work lies in the in-between space. Thank you Cristóbal and everyone for attending, and also to Hosein Danesh for these lovely photos. All the links we looked at are posted in the video description. Stay tuned for our next event announcement!

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Manifest: Friday April 9th with Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña!

LINK TO LIVE EVENT: https://vimeo.com/event/353758

Our first ever duo will join me live at our next animation discussion - fingers crossed the technology Gods will cooperate! I’m very excited to host Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña, two artists whose work I’ve admired for many years. They will join me from Santiago de Chile to talk about an animation they find inspiring. The live stream will happen on Friday, April 9th at 19:00 Rotterdam time (that’s 18:00 in London, 1PM in New York City/Santiago, or 10AM in LA). The event will be available to view after the fact, but if you tune in live you can contribute to the discussion via the chat box. 

You may remember this duo from their 2008 short film Luis, or from their more recent feature film La Casa Lobo (which we talked about at an in-person Manifest a few years ago). 

Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña (both 1980, Chile) have collaborated since 2007. They work in animation films, installations, paintings and sculptures, among other media. Both studied at the Universidad Católica de Chile. León also studied at UDK - Berlin and at De Ateliers, Amsterdam. For the production of their films they combine different techniques such as photography, drawing, sculpture and performance. León and Cociña have won several awards and their films are regularly selected for international film festivals. Their work has been exhibited in several museums and biennials, among which are Whitechapel Gallery, Guggenheim New York, KW Berlin, the Venice Biennale and Art Basel. They recently premiered their first feature film "La Casa Lobo" at the 68 Berlinale 2018, where they received the Caligari Award. They live and work in Santiago de Chile.

Join us here on April 9th! If you tune in live, then you can contribute to the conversation via the chat box.

Stay up to date on the Manifest FB, Twitter or Insta, or sign up for the Manifest newsletter.

And thank you as always to Oana Clitan for our graphic design!

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Photos from Manifest with Boris Labbé

Lovely documentation by Hosein Danesh of our crazy live streams from the WORM venue in Rotterdam. Thank you so much to Boris Labbé for joining me from his home in France to talk about Piotr Kamler’s 1993 short film Une Mission Ephemere, or One Ephemeral Mission. It is a masterpiece in stop-motion (with plenty of optical printing or maybe early computer animation? You decide!). It is lovely to bask in the glow of films that are mysterious and don’t give everything away, but at the same time clearly talk about big themes. If you missed the conversation, you can watch it back here, and every link we looked at is posted in the video description: https://vimeo.com/514415814

Stay tuned for our next event announcement!

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Manifest: Thursday, March 18th  with Boris Labbé

LINK TO LIVE EVENT: https://vimeo.com/event/353758

I’m very happy to welcome French artist/filmmaker Boris Labbé to virtually discuss an animation he finds inspiring at the next Manifest. The live stream will happen on Thursday, March 18th at 19:00 Rotterdam/Central Europe time (that’s 18:00 in London, 2PM in New York and 11AM in LA - one hour off than usual in the USA because of daylight’s savings). The event will be available to view after the fact, but if you tune in live you can contribute to the discussion via the chat box. 

You may know Boris from his animated short films ‘Rhizome’ and ‘La Chute’ which both took festivals by storm in 2015 and 2018 respectively.

Boris Labbé is a graphic and video artist and director who works mainly with animation and installation. He is interested in the way space and time are ordered in film and video production and in exploring and disrupting the patterns that result. In his projects, classical cinematic ordering evolves towards video installation devices that synthesize major technological revolutions of the past century with the latest digital technology. His work ties together the device of looping and the theme of regeneration, exploring evolution and the perpetual loss of and return to life through cyclical editing.

I found this project above especially interesting - a student project from Boris’ days at EMCA (École des métiers du cinéma d’animation) - in light of my conversation with filmmaker Chris Sullivan a few months ago, where we talked about Breugel and looping.

Join us here on March 18th! If you tune in live, then you can contribute to the conversation via the chat box.

Stay up to date on the Manifest FB, Twitter or Insta, or sign up for the Manifest newsletter.

And thank you as always to Oana Clitan for our graphic design!

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Photos from Manifest with Leo Crane

Hosein Danesh runs around our streaming venue at WORM capturing the behind-the-scenes, and we’re so grateful! Look at these lovely snaps. Thank you so much to Leo Crane for joining me from London to talk about Ian Gouldstone’s wonderful film 'guy101', and to everyone who contributed via the chat box. This film is a super interesting ‘snapshot in time’ when it comes to queer culture and also, our relationship (and use of) the internet. We also managed to address (in a very non-comprehensive manner) queer representation in animation (or the lack thereof), and other films told on screens. If you missed the conversation, you can watch it back here, and every link we looked at is posted in the video description: https://vimeo.com/503592133

Stay tuned for our next event announcement!

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Manifest: Friday, Feb 19th with Leo Crane!

LINK TO LIVE EVENT: https://vimeo.com/event/353758

Let’s celebrate deep winter with London-based filmmaker Leo Crane! Leo is an old friend from a couple animation labs, and he has a wide range of knowledge so I’m really looking forward to chatting about an animation he finds inspiring. The live stream starts at 19:00 Rotterdam time, which is 18:00 in London, 1PM in NYC or 10AM in LA. The event will be available to view after the fact, but if you tune in live you can contribute to the discussion via the chat box (which is much more fun!)

Leo is an artist, facilitator and co-founder of Figuration, a creative social enterprise. His practice explores identity and belonging with a visual language rooted in movement and colour.

In 2019/20, he brought a community of artists together to create Nude Triumphant, a watercolour animation, interactive art performance and community programme (Arts Council supported). Set in the Starkers Academy, the project exposes the psychological journey of a first-time life model, combining body-positive self-expression with Queer cabaret. (Read an interview with Leo about the film on Zippy Frames).

Leo’s animations have explored abandonment (The Foundling, 2018), immigration (London Parakeets, 2019), and activism (Queer Heroes/Denise Ho, 2020). His first solo show Life in Colour: Portraits of Queer Londoners (Picturehouse Stratford East) was featured in the Evening Standard’s top five things to do for Pride in London 2019.

Stay up to date on the Manifest FB, Twitter or Insta, or sign up for the Manifest newsletter.

And thank you as always to Oana Clitan for our graphic design!

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Photos from Manifest with Nienke Deutz!

Wonderful photos as usual by Hosein Danesh of the madness behind the scenes during our live streams from WORM. Thank you to Nienke Deutz for tuning in from her studio in Rotterdam to video chat with me about 'Le Repas Dominical' by Céline Devaux, and of course, thank you all who tuned in to make the conversation richer. We talked mainly about the balance between audio and visual in a film, whether it’s a film with a super strong character-full voice-over narration, or a film with almost no dialogue/narration. At the end of the day, as Nienke said, it’s what serves the film best. If you missed our conversation, you can watch it back here, and the links to films we looked at are posted in the description: https://vimeo.com/498447650

Stay tuned for our next event announcement!

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Manifest: Friday, Jan 22nd with Nienke Deutz!

LINK TO LIVE EVENT: https://vimeo.com/event/353758

Very much looking forward to chatting with Nienke Deutz about an animation she finds inspiring. That's right, this will be the shortest video link in Manifest so far, since Nienke is also in Rotterdam! The time of the live stream will be 19:00 our time, which is 18:00 in London, 1PM in NYC, 10AM in LA/Seattle, or 3AM in Tokyo (sorry Tokyo!). The event will be available to view after the fact, but if you tune in live you can contribute to the discussion via the chat box.

You may recognize Nienke's name from her short film Bloiestraat 11, a touching portrait of young friendship and growing up. I'm very curious to see what she will pick to talk about!

Nienke Deutz is a director and animator based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Exploring the narrative and formal possibilities animated film has to offer, she combines various animation techniques and ways of storytelling. She studied fine arts in Maastricht and got her master degree in animation at the school of arts in Ghent, Belgium. Her debut film Bloeistraat 11 won over 30 awards including the Cristal for best short film in Annecy, the grand prix at Stuttgart Festival of animated film and the grand prix at Tokyo Anime Award festival.

Join us here on Jan 22nd! If you tune in live, then you can contribute to the conversation via the chat box.

Stay up to date on the Manifest FB, Twitter or Insta, or sign up for the Manifest newsletter.

And thank you as always to Oana Clitan for our graphic design!

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Photos from Friday’s event with Chris Sullivan!

So nice as usual to see the photos from our live streams. Taken by Hosein Danesh at our venue, WORM in Rotterdam, these photos really show what goes into creating a live event that includes a video call, screen sharing, and real time comments from the audience. Thank you so much to Chris Sullivan for joining me from Chicago to share an animated film he finds inspiring, and to all who tuned in to make our conversation richer. We talked about the beautiful 'É in Motion No. 2' by Japanese artist Sumito Sakakibara. We spent some time talking about the art historical references in the film (Bruegel and Bosch among others), how skillfully it is designed from a compositional point of view, and how well-animated, to make the ‘micro plots’ (as one audience member commented) clear. We also talked about the difference between seeing this as a film with a slow pan, or seeing it in a 360 degree projection. And of course, the other films it made us think of! If you missed it, the event can be watched back here: https://vimeo.com/489941408

Stay tuned for our next event announcement!