Dark Toons Co-curated by Signe Baumane and Square Footage Films Buy the Avoid Eye Contact DVD today! Download a Press Release soon or buy TICKETS Friday, July 1st, 2005 8:30 - Live music by The Couriers (details below) 9:00 - Everybody loves cartoons (even disturbing ones) Outdoors at Automotive High School 50 Bedford Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Dress warmly (it's cooler sitting still than in the streets). In the event of rain the show is indoors at the same location. Dark Toons When JJ Villard's animated film Son of Satan played in the student section of his hometown's Santa Barbara Film Fest, the crowd booed it off the screen. Villard, not one to back down from a confrontation, responded, "People in little small-town shitty Santa Barbara need to know what idiots they are for booing my film....The film is not disgusting, or vulgar, it's just real." If this movie about the brutal beating of an unpopular kid had been live action, surely people would've been shocked, but not offended. Yet people expect something different from animation. People expect cartoon violence to be goofy, like Bugs Bunny, or moralistic, like the death of Bambi's mother. When a cartoon is genuinely violent and disturbing, as Villard said, it's frighteningly real. What is particularly piercing about this program is the way in which so many characters struggle against their own worst instincts. The actions are exaggerated, cartoonish, but the feelings, the moral struggles, are subtle, human. In Handshake, the swirling transformations are hypnotizing, but moreover, we can relate to the characters as the man and a woman fight for dominance or simple self-preservation in a relationship. Despite their friendly intentions, when the relationship fails, we understand why she is willing to try again. In Moonraker, we are torn trying to decide what the isolated astronaut wants. He seems content to live alone with his ghosts, but he doesn't know that his haunted spacesuit is destroying any chance for successful outside communication. In Harmony, moral paradoxes are cast across the entire anthropomorphic animal kingdom. The animals' brutal actions are not, as Villard said, disgusting or vulgar, they're just real. In the hands of these skilled animators, the full force of their emotion will hit you like a bottle thrown from a car, a gold package smashing across your jaw, a plate of pasta shoved down your maw. This program would not have been possible if not for the brilliant curating assistance of Signe Baumane and the wonderful short animation brought to us by Square Footage Films.„Their incredible DVD features several of the films in this program and includes some of the best new toons in the world.„ It is available for purchase at www.squarefootagefilms.com. THE FILMS: Handshake (Pat Smith / New York, NY / 5:00) We begin the show with a greeting. A man and a woman meet, and are drawn into each other, literally and figuratively. From here on out, it's a battle of wills, loving and violent. Courtesy of Square Footage Films. God Is So Close Now (JJ Villard / Santa Barbara, CA / 5:00) Starting at birth, and seemingly against his own will, Villard's narrator takes on the world. Sadly, his unique and bitter energy proves too much for anyone, particularly himself. Coffee (Rohitash Rao / New York, NY / 2:00) They say caffeine fueled the Renaissance. Now it fuels bizarre revelations and spooky animation. Courtesy of Square Footage Films. Harmony (Jim Trainor / Chicago, IL / 12:00 Animals do a lot of things -- eat their young, screw their sisters -- which would be pretty shocking if done by humans. Then again, humans come up with a lot of rituals that range from nonsensical to malignant. Que Sera Sera (JJ Villard / Santa Barbara, CA / 5:00) Villard's sad struggle with religion, relationships and destiny. Red Things (Max Porter / Providence, RI / 9:40) Red rover, red rover, let red things come over. This animation is about a melancholy and magical moment when a tree became a magnet for firetrucks, valentines, and one particular color in the rainbow. There's something haunting about the tree«s desperate neediness, and something satisfying in the appreciation of beauty in just one color. Courtesy of Chaise 2 DVD. The Ordovicians (Jim Trainor & Lisa Barcy / Chicago, IL / 5:00) A land of squiggles and splots in an abstract harmony. Moonraker (Fran Krause / New York, NY / 3:00) Another beautiful and mysteriously amusing short from Fran Krause (Mr. Smile, Rooftop 7/23/04) about a content but lonely astronaut stranded on a haunted moon. This is a startlingly funny and poignant film about exploration, honing in on how humanity affects the universe with our seemingly harmless intrepid investigations. The moon is watching. Courtesy of Square Footage Films. Eat (Bill Plympton / New York, NY / 9:00) You«re not likely to want to eat after this film by New York's animation godfather Bill Plympton. Courtesy of Square Footage Films. Prudence: "A Tort ou a Raison" (Philippe Clerte & Phillippe Massonet / Paris, France / 3:00) Like caffeine, wine, of course, fuels its share of romance, dreaming, and French pop songs -- particularly when consumed in quantities that cause the stains on the table to dance. When It Rains (Alina Bliumis / Minsk, Russia / 3:00) Floating down a sea of tears, this is what all the cool reindeer are dancing to in Russia. Music by Boris Grebenshikov. Delivery (Pat Smith / New York, NY / 7:00) Two slackers quietly slug it out over a mysterious package. The subtle changes in expression -- the shimmer of a black-dot eye, the doubling of a downturned mouth -- belie the hyper violence, but indicate fascinating degrees of gentleness and greed. Courtesy of Square Footage Films. The Man Who Yelled (Mo Willems / New York, NY / 3:00) Perhaps the man was angry, perhaps he was insane, but these days, you can be famous for just about anything. In this whimsical satire, a man and his manager seek fortune and fame and...well, we won«t ruin the suspense. Courtesy of Square Footage Films. The Bottle Incident (Robert Castillo / Chelsea, MA / 5:00) Like an animated diary entry, Robert Castillo sketches the storyboard of his life. In this chapter, he relates a horrifying story from his childhood when he was the heroic and foolish victim of a racial attack. Courtesy of Shooting People. Son of Satan (JJ Villard / Santa Barbara, CA / 10:00) In this terrifying tale of childhood brutality, just watch how the lead character's face changes from a pockfaced villain to a scared kid as he wrestles with his anger and doubt, and surely you'll remember a time when you did something wrong and knew you couldn't stop yourself. THE MUSIC: The Couriers deliver love letters wrapped in edgy indie-pop.