Synopsis
Foreword: The animation “Glass Fingers” is probably the most successful production of its kind in recent years in Romania. The film has made its way flawlessly through Europe’s biggest animation festivals such as Annecy, Anima Brussels, found a place in the Sarajevo FF competition and was awarded a special mention at Anim’est in Bucharest. (cinepub.ro)
Directed by: Alina Gheorghe
Script:Alina Gheorghe, Andrei Voineag
Producer: U.N.A.T.C. „I.L. Caragiale”, București
Cinematography by: Alina Gheorghe
Edited by: Alina Gheorghe
Sound: Andrei Voineag
Music: Andrei Voineag
Year: 2022
Category: animation
Duration: 6 minutes
8,664 – Cinepub viewers
PLOT SUMMARY
A woman gives shape to octopuses out of her own flesh. When she runs out of material she has to face what she has created.
AWARDS:
- 2022 – Anim’est, Bucharest – Special Mention for a Romanian Film
- 2023 – Gopo Awards – nominee for Best Animation
FESTIVALS:
- 2023 – Annecy International Animation Film Festival
- 2023 – Anima Brussels Animation Film Festival
- 2023 – Sarajevo Film Festival
- 2022 – DIPLOMA Festival
CRITICAL REVIEWS:
“In a huge palace composed of transparencies, statues watch over the empty space. The bathtub in the ballroom shelters the female body that tears organic matter from itself, metamorphosed into tentacular, electric plasma that disappears on the liquid glass floor as if through the shallow extremities of the sea. One and the same with water, with matter, with liquid light.” – Emil Vasilache (cinepub.ro)
“Let us give the poor to eat their own offspring,” suggested Jonathan Swift in “A Modest Proposal,” a hyperbolic satire attacking the hostile attitudes of Protestants toward Irish proletarians in the eighteenth century. “Glass Fingers” doesn’t make such a directly political statement, but the elements it plays with have an admirable seriousness: the tearing of flesh, the raw, contorted aesthetics of the body’s physiognomy (borrowed without concealment from Egon Schiele), the mirror-pharif, lead beyond the aesthetic.” – Emil Vasilache (cinepub.ro)
“Without thematically overburdening the entire movie, the director executes a supple, triple-jump-on-ice-like movement and closes the narrative with dignity.” – Emil Vasilache (cinepub.ro)
TRIVIA:
- “Glass Fingers” is Alina Gheorghe’s graduation thesis.
- The film takes as its starting point the way the artist looks at her own work: multiple creations that often, in her eyes, seem like a sea of meaningless works.
- The first stage was the script, then the cutting and animation. In the pre-production the backgrounds were made, they needed extra time being modeled entirely in 3D and later redrawn in 2D. In the rough animation stage, the artist filmed herself for movement references and establishing the rhythm of the frames. The animation was digitally realized in 2D, frame by frame. “The 3D part is a skill I acquired in college, which helped me a lot to think about the sets. I ended up using 3D because I wanted to have an architectural and spatial accuracy that is almost impossible to achieve otherwise and requires a much more in-depth and specific amount of work and study, which is not directly related to an animated movie. The visual concept of the movie, inspired by rococo ballrooms, demanded a level of detail that would not have been possible otherwise.” (Alina Gheorghe, revistagolan.com)
- When asked about the artistic currents or elements that inspired her, Alina replies, “The reason why I chose the rococo movement is because I see it as the movement that gave birth to kitsch. I associated the character’s perspective on the works with bad taste, and although you probably don’t understand this, for me it was clearly a huge help to start from things already concretized and expressed in order to figure out what I actually wanted to say. The symbols that I use in the movie were not necessarily thought through from a contemporary perspective or how they could be interpreted, so I don’t necessarily have an answer. But with my next movie, I’m trying to connect the two and delve deeper into why I use this aesthetic. “ (revistagolan.com)
ARTICLES:
- Animation industry news. Alina Gheorghe’s “Glass Fingers” (graduation film) selected at Annecy – proanimatie.ro
- Interview/ Alina Grigore & Andrei Voineag on the animated short film “Glass Fingers” – revistagolan.com
- New beginnings in animation: Ruxandra Socor and Alina Gheorghe – filmmenu.wordpress.com
- Romanian competition at Animest.19 brings 12 daring short films to the big screen – adevarul.ro
- “What’s going on with animated films?”, a “Cinesens” debate with Magdalena Stanciu – cultural.tvr.ro
