The character of Alice from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass is transported to contemporary Toronto. Whilst riding a streetcar, Alice encounters a pair of strange characters who engage her in an equally strange debate over whether or not they exist. The dialogue is borrowed directly from Carroll, but given a fresh and funny new twist in this short stop-motion animation.

Director’s Statement
“Toronto Alice employs paper cutouts and articulated paper puppets, photographed against flat, 2D backgrounds with the technique of stop-motion animation. Using paper cutouts, I strive to capitalize on their inherent anti-realism to produce films steeped in fantastic and dreamlike imagery. The technical limitations of paper puppets, with their characteristically stiff movements, make cutout animation particularly well suited to animations whose themes involve fantasy, surrealism, dreams, and that which otherwise lacks realism. Rather than being an hinderance, the anti-realism of the paper cutout serves to amplify the strangeness of the events that happen throughout.” — Jennifer Linton

Voice of Alice by Nicole Bauman
Voices of Tweedledee & Tweedledum by Matt Speirs
Sound recording and design by Karl Mohr
Stop-motion animation, post-production, editing, and direction by Jennifer Linton
Adapted from “Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There”, by Lewis Carroll (published in 1871).

This animation was made possible by the financial support of the Ontario Arts Council, and by the generosity of my Indiegogo contributors. Thank you!

Copyright ©2015 Papercut Pictures. All rights reserved.

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Festival Screenings

• “Tunnel Vision” (17th Annual Doors Open Toronto), Rendezvous with Madness Film Festival, Toronto, May 27-28, 2017.
• “Toronto for Everyone”, Toronto for Everyone/Centre for Social Innovation (celebration at Honest Ed’s), Toronto, February 24, 2017.
• Official Selection, Toronto Urban Film Festival 2016.
• Official Selection, International Filmmaker Festival of World Cinema Berlin 2016.
• Children’s & Youth Official Selection, New Horizon International Film Festival 2016, Wrocław, Poland.
• Official Selection, Female Eye Film Festival 2016, Toronto, Ontario.
• Children’s & Youth Competition Official Selection, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (Germany) 2016.
• Featured in the “Canadian Shorts” program at the Los Angeles International Women’s Film Festival 2015.
• Official Selection at Animation Chico Film Festival 2015, Chico, California.

Showcased on Canadian Animation Resources: canadiananimationresources.ca/2015/08/showcase-toronto-alice-by-jennifer-linton/

The BluRay disc of Toronto Alice includes this short film plus my two previous animated shorts La Petite Mort and The Incident in the Nursery, PLUS a one-hour interview conducted by Elizabeth Fearon and Steve Armstrong. Ships right to your door. WOWZA!

You can purchase the BluRays here.