Film Archive

Jahr

International Competition Animated Film 2024

The Brown Dog

Nadia Hallgren, Jamie-James Medina
A cold winter’s night. Armoured in coolness, Nobody makes his lonely security guard rounds in the square, engrossed in his meandering reflections of life – melancholy of the streets.
Filmstill The Brown Dog
Filmstill The Brown Dog

The Brown Dog

The Brown Dog
Nadia Hallgren, Jamie-James Medina
International Competition Animated Film 2024
Animated Film
UK,
USA
2024
14 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
None
The winter’s night draws its last breaths in the milky amber glow of the street lights. Snowflakes trickle down, the camera slowly circles a small guardroom in a driveway. Night after night, this lonely island is occupied by: Nobody. As a security guard in the cold, he guarantees the safety of the warm homes and their owners. He passes the time with a recalcitrant oil radiator, a calendar girl on a green meadow and his meandering thoughts. His security logs serve as a seismograph of reflections on life and nightly rounds of the square. Nobody is wrapped in a shell of coolness grown over a long time, which makes it hard for him to react to a rare smile the way he would like to in his heart.
Nadia Hallgren and Jamie-James Medina condense an autobiographical short story by artist and musician Willis Earl Beal aka “Nobody”. The actor Michael K. Williams, who died in 2021, lent his voice to this inner monologue and gives it a sleepy, melodious sound. In this very cinematic, melancholy piece in a state of limbo, casual observations open a philosophical cosmos. But every time the journey of the mind crashes on the tarmac of the carpark in front of the block of flats.
André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Nadia Hallgren, Jamie-James Medina
Script
Willis Earl Beal
Editor
Spencer Campbell
Producer
Michael Stirton, Jamie-James Medina, Nadia Hallgren
Sound
Machine Sound
Sound Design
Michalis Anthis
Score
Tyshawn Sorey
Animation
Fons Schiedon
World Sales
Brian Newman
Nominated for: mephisto 97.6 Audience Award
Filmstill The Role

The Role

The Role
Paolo Chianta
International Competition Animated Film 2024
Animated Film
UK
2023
5 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
English
Lines scrawled on white paper with a ballpoint pen. Everything looks like a hastily drawn scribble – a sketch of ideas rather than a finished film, possibly only a quick storyboard. The jerkily connected images show a food stall somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Something extraordinary happens here: Two filmmakers – brother and sister – hire the chef as the leading actor of their project. They are planning a biopic about their father. The fast-food expert is not only the spitting image of the famous man, he is just like him! The casting could not be more apt, the film business newcomer lets them convince him. But the task turns out to be difficult. Though the cook does everything to do justice to this demanding role, he seems less and less suited for the job every day. Completely engrossed in the preparations for the part, he becomes increasingly distant from his own children. The boundaries between the film and the single father’s real life begin to blur. Is it possible that shooting has already begun?
Franka Sachse

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Paolo Chianta
Script
Paolo Chianta
Editor
Paolo Chianta
Producer
Paolo Chianta
Co-Producer
Lilah Vandenburgh
Score
Paolo Chianta
Animation
Paolo Chianta
Nominated for: mephisto 97.6 Audience Award