What Rhymes with Toxic
Synopsis:
Chemical sludge is spilling into the lake. For the city councillor responsible, it’s just a big nuisance. For the wildlife, it’s a catastrophe. One turtle, in her desperate hour, summons up the courage to leave her home and speak truth to power. Turns out there’s more at stake than just the lake.
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Inspired by Henri Michaux's poems and drawings about his experience with mescaline, "Miserable Miracle" explores the limits of language and perception, creating connections between sound, meaning, line and movement.
- Drama
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The severed head of a choreographer is held captive by an eagle on a desert island. With a dazzling mastery of drawing and painting, this animated short unexpectedly takes us into the sensitive world of an artist madly in love with dance.
- Drama
- Experimental
- Abstract
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Bad Seeds takes us to a bizarre world populated by carnivorous plants that can change shapes the way a chameleon changes colours. The veteran director of Carface deftly connects growth with rivalry and evolution with competition, crafting an increasingly shocking duel that’s peppered with allusions to the western, the Cold War, board games, and much more.
- Drama
- Abstract
- Experimental
- Tragicomedy
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Dealing with what comes naturally isn’t easy, especially for animals. In Animal Behaviour, the latest animated short from the Oscar-winning team of Alison Snowden and David Fine (Bob’s Birthday), five animals meet regularly to discuss their inner angst in a group therapy session led by dr. Clement, a canine psychotherapist.
- Comedy
- Tragicomedy
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Manivald is a fox in his early 30s. He is still living at home with his mother. One day a young hot wolf called Toomas comes to fix the washing machine. A love triangle develops between the three of them. Things get out of hand and Manivald realizes that it is time to move out.
- Drama
- Comedy
- Tragicomedy
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He is a magician. She is a firefighter. Isolating themselves from the chaos of a world in turmoil, the two lovers live in a crane basket high in the sky, where they go about their daily business. Their challenge is to keep their heads, here up above it all, while everything is falling apart down below. But when reality calls – when fires need quenching and people need entertaining – how can they best make themselves useful in a world gone off the rails?
- Drama
- Abstract
- Experimental
- Tragicomedy
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Following an explosion, a mysterious and elegant elderly woman wanders deserted city streets, recalling what was and what could have been.
- Drama
- Experimental
- Non-narrative
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Is it possible to trace the chain of events that lead to our own birth? Is our existence just coincidence? Do little things matter?
- Drama
- Romance
- Tragicomedy
- Bio-pic
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This animated short follows an unwanted baby who is passed from house to house until he is taken in and cared for by two homeless men. The film is the Canadian contribution to an hour-long feature film celebrating UNESCO’s Year of the Child (1979). It illustrates one of the ten principles of the Declaration of Children’s Rights: every child is entitled to a name and a nationality.
- Drama
- Comedy
- Tragicomedy
- Family
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In a short film by Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby, two ships collide in a harbor, sending a passing sailor skyward as he contemplates the wonder and fragility of existence.
- Comedy
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How many obsessions can one family have? In Joanna Quinn and Les Mills’ Affairs of the Art, we reconnect with Beryl, the working-class heroine who not only reveals her own obsession with drawing but exposes the addictions of her eccentric family, which include pickling, screw threads and pet taxidermy.
- Drama
- Comedy
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What could the illness afflicting Henri Castagnette be? Filled with anxiety, the young man puts his fate in the hands of the off-puttingly exuberant Dr. Von Strudel. In The Turtle Syndrome, Samuel Cantin, author of the popular “motormouth” graphic novels Phobie des moments seuls and Whitehorse, recounts the story of an endearing anti-hero’s frenzied and hilarious medical appointment. Produced by the NFB, The Turtle Syndrome is part of the Comic Strip Chronicles collection.