SYNOPSIS:

Madelaine’s cabinet of curiosities contained a collection of wonders to both delight and horrify. One day, a mysterious item in her cabinet captures her attention. A darkly-tinged fantasy that explores the erotic-grotesque.

Directed, animated, and edited by Jennifer Linton
Music score by Zev Farber

ABOUT THIS FILM

Wunderkammer is a 2D stop-motion animated film shot under camera using unarmatured, replacement paper cutouts. This traditional animation medium is time-consuming and laborious, involving hundreds of individual drawings that are drawn on paper with a peg-bar, scanned, printed, hand-coloured and cutout. These cutouts are swapped in frame-to-frame to create smooth, complex movements not possible with articulated paper puppets. The resulting film has all the hand-drawn charm and personality of traditional cel animation, plus the lovely textures and materiality of stop-motion.

Could I make my films quicker with digital animation? You betcha. Would they possess the same idiosyncratic, hand-drawn look and feel? No, they would not. Are these traditional animation techniques worth preserving through usage in indie animation? Yes, indeed.

Below is an artist’s profile and behind-the-scenes look at the making of Wunderkammer, which was shot, directed & edited by my super talented friend, Lionel Bebbington.

Many thanks to the kind generosity of my Indiegogo contributors!

Copyright ©2018 Papercut Pictures. All rights reserved.

Festival Screenings

• Official Selection, Les Femmes Underground Film Festival 2020, Los Angeles, CA.
• Official Selection, GIRAF Festival of Independent Animation 2019, Calgary, Alberta.
• Official Selection, Canadian Panorama program, Ottawa International Animation Festival 2019, Ottawa, Ontario.
• Programmed into the International Animation Festival AJAYU 2019, Lima, Peru.
• Programmed into the Canadian Shorts block at KIN Women’s International Film Festival 2019, Yerevan, Armenia.
• Official Selection, Female Eye Film Festival 2019, Toronto, Ontario.
• Official Selection, Uppsala International Short Film Festival 2019, Uppsala, Sweden.
• Official Selection, STUFF MX Film Festival 2019, Mexico City.
• Official Selection, Druid Underground Film Festival 2019, various U.S. locations.
• Official Selection, Sydney Underground Film Festival 2019, Sydney, Australia.
• Official Selection, Photophobia: Contemporary Moving Image Festival 2019, co-presentation by Hamilton Artists Inc. and the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Ontario.
• Official Selection, Sick ‘n’ Wrong Film Festival 2019, Orlando, Florida.
• Official Selection, TAIS Animation Showcase 2019, Toronto, Ontario.
• Included in the “Under Control: Female Experiments in Animation” program at Under the Radar Festival & Conference 2019, Vienna, Austria.
• Canadian Short program, Uçan Süpürge / Flying Broom International Women’s Film Festival 2019, Ankara,Turkey.
• Official Selection, Holly Weird Film Festival 2019, North Hollywood, CA.
• Programmed into the non-competitive block “Midnight Animation: Body” at Anifilm 2019 in Třeboň, Czech Republic.
• Official Selection, Chicago Underground Film Festival 2019.
• Official Selection, MidWest Weirdfest 2019.
• Official Selection, Boston Underground Film Festival 2019.
• “Freakiest Night” programme block, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival 2019, Spain.
• Official Selection, Medusa Underground Film Festival 2019, Las Vegas, Nevada.

*A wunderkammer, also known as a “cabinet of curiosities” in English, is a place in which a collection of curiosities and rarities is exhibited. These were proto-museums, and were often found in the homes of wealthy, educated individuals who wished to demonstrate to their peers an interest and knowledge of science, etc. Wet specimens (like the octopus in the jar) and shrunken heads (called tsantsa) were popular set pieces in such cabinets.