RETROSPECTIONS OF JURY- Steven Subotnick, Amy Kravitz
AMY KRAVITZ
ROOST / 1998 / 4'30"
Roost describes, in abstracted imagery, a desolate place in which new life kindles belief in God. The wild hen at
roost is blessed, Delirious angels sing 'round her nest, Rejoice! In the old barn, a new voice.
TRAP / 1988 / 5'30"
A film composed solely of stark abstract images animated with black lithographic crayon on paper. The Trap was
inspired by a quote from holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel's book Souls on Fire : I try to imagine my grandfather in the
train that carried him away. Using the language of pure animation, The Trap articulates the difficult and disturbing
sensations of that last journey.
RIVER LETHE / 1985 / 7'
A non-narrative and abstract visual poem in five parts. Its title refers to the underworld river of forgetfulness. The
drawings are created from non-traditional animation media, including rubbed and erased graphite, pigment, and
aluminum powders, to make an animate surface of unusual richness.
STEVEN SUBOTNICK
JELLY FISHERS / 2009 / 6'45"
A surreal animated lullaby inspired by a traditional song from the island of Guernsey. A family of mole-like creatures
hovers on the edge of starvation until an irritating fly comes to their rescue. This film is an exploration of the themes
of hunger, sleep, and death.
GLASS CROW / 2004 / 6'20"
A meditation on the Defenestration of Prague in 1618. This event sparked the start of the Thirty Years War –
a religious conflict which killed close to a third of the population of central Europe, and set its cultural development
back by a century.
HAIRYMAN / 1998 / 3'
A psychological fable inspired by a folk tale from the American South. Three characters pursue their hungers in
a stream-of-consciousness chain of events.
DEVIL'S BOOK / 1994 / 5'
Hell as a physical object – the devil's ledger book – with each entry representing a damned soul. The film is made
from a combination of gestural abstractions, etchings, collages, and photographs. Inspired by a short story by Isaac
Peretz, Neilah in Gehenna .
WEST / 2011 / 2'
The first in a series of short films that explore the destruction of the American wilderness.
TWO / 2011 / 2'30"
A dialog between two shapes. The animation is built from a single sequence of gestural abstractions.
