Artists respond to the pressing issues of our times
Supernova selected the theme World on Fire in early January for this year’s festival. Each year, the festival has coincided with a world facing vast challenges, stemming from human impact, that have threatened large swaths of the population. Even prior to a life-changing global pandemic, with no end in sight, it still felt as though an urgency was mounting as we inch ever closer to a precipice of insurmountable change to our world. Desperate situations call for major statements and serious introspection, the kind artists are most suited to deliver, whether tending towards the darkness or the light, social and political issues, or to those that extend beyond the bounds of our imagination. Stunned by the response, Supernova is proud to offer a multitude of perspectives that firmly fit the intentions we aimed to explore during what started out as just another year. All animations are eligible for new cash prize awards, to be determined by Supernova’s team of digital animation experts.
Most animations are suitable for all ages, though perhaps not all political persuasions.
Melanie Clemmons
The triptych HURT, CIRCUIT CITY, & HEAL is a video spell. Engaging with the intersection of art, technology, and witchcraft, the triptych draws a magic circle and explores how the phrase ‘as above, so below’ plays out in this digital new age.
Maja GEHRIG
Grand Prize Award Winner World on Fire Program 2020
During a PowerPoint presentation, statistical diagrams are breaking free from the strait-jacket of their coordinates. A trip into the sensual world of statistics begins. Pie charts are melting, arrow diagrams twisting, scatter plots...
Molly Murphy
Honorable Mention World on Fire Program 2020
The world is about to be swallowed by a black hole. Meteorites fall from the sky, ocean waves take on enormous new heights, and chaos abounds in city streets as people confront their looming demise. The world turns to wealthy entrepreneur...
Sean Capone
Honorable Mention World on Fire Program 2020
A cartoon virus delivers an upbeat philosophic monologue from deep inside the microbiological realm.
Gustavo Carreiro / Favo Studio
Honorable Mention World on Fire Program 2020
Puberty is a peculiar time, characterised by enormous changes, insecurities and questionable choices. Now imagine if you add a global virus to the mix.
Raquel Meyers
2nd Place Award winner World on Fire Program 2020
‘Inattention’ is a #Teletext based animation made at the Residency Irudika 2020 and, it was finished in confinement on May 3, 2020, in Angoulême.
This project has been possible thanks to the collaboration of Acción Cultural Española...
Julie Reiters
This short film is a celebration of simple acts of play, imagination and downtime for kids and families combating stress and boredom in the midst of the COVID crisis. And it's an uplifting message for all. It encourages everyone not to discount the often overlooked rejuvenating pow...
Arnaud LAFFOND
stay home is a graphic logbook, which I try to keep by putting my feelings into it during this quarantine. How I perceive it and there feel from day to day. By putting my own experiences and the feelings of people around me that I have on the phone or other social networks.
It is...
Azalia Muchransyah
A girl wakes up in a world that seems normal, but soon she realizes that there is a pandemic going on. Can she escape it?
Azalia Muchransyah is a filmmaker, writer, and scholar from Indonesia who is pursuing a Ph.D. in Media Study at University at Buffalo (SUNY). She receives...
Tau Subaru
Cool Craziness from Japan, a curatorial discovery like no other in 2020
Jeongki Kim
An ominous force violently separates two bears in space. A friend is lost but not forgotten.
Jeongki Kim is an animator from Gardner, Massachusetts and a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). He enjoys making work that is whimsical and fantastical, and explores dream...
Qiyao Lin
The world is round. It's just a matter of time before everything comes back.
Peter Whittenberger
In a time of crisis, a hero rises among the lek to protect their western habitat. Joining forces with an advanced society, the greater sage grouse of Northern Nevada bring the fight to an insatiable species of landscape encroachers.
Patrick Henry
'This is the final warning from us, the Brute Creation’.
The Brute Creation is a magic-realist eco-fable. A prophetic warning about the Earth and how the humans are f**king it all up. We cut the trees, we kill the animals or cage them and send them to markets. Destroy landscapes, ...
Henrike Lendowski
Diminuendo visualizes the detrimental effects plastic waste has on marine life and the environment from an emotional point of view. Through visual metaphors, the viewer is guided through sceneries that get more and more covered by plastic. To emphasize the contrast between the ...
Janett Weaver, Joana Madruga & Tina Matherson
“Unboxing Her” is a stop-motion animated short that portrays the limitations, fears, and obstacles women experience throughout the game of life.
The story takes place on a gameboard inside a male-dominant social construct that determines the rules o...
Maya Dite-Shepard
Dinah Kalaha & María Bjarnadótti
An animated short film about a mythical Selkie and a Scottish girl standing together against assault.
We are Dinah Kalaha & Maria Bjarnadottir, a visual development artist and an animator who are passionate about telling magical and meaningful stories through an...
Matt Shanahan
The music video tells the story of The Gunner, a 23 year old tail-gunner in WWI, who has been shot down over enemy territory and is slowly dying. The Gunner dreams of a better world with peace and solidarity, and no war. Dreaming of change to come to the world as he slowly leaves it.
Gregory Bennett
Edifice I’ is an 8:30 minute experimental 3D animation situated in an art practice that that embraces 3D computer animation and the digital body to explore themes and tensions around nature and culture, the utopian and the dystopian, through the rendering of complex digital ecosy...
Kim Hokwon
Prime Minister Abe goes into KFC(Kennedy Fried Chicken) stores to buy chicken, but chicken is already sold out. At the next table, presidents from various countries start playing cards to win the last chicken basket.
Pamela Guest
Following the death of George Floyd, major outcries and demonstrations have followed in the US and across the world. These demonstrations urge the prioritization of putting an end to police brutality and lifting up and protecting black lives.
It’s necessary to utilize whatever plat...
