When I was at the Rhode Island Film Festival, on the opening night when Gone Fishing screened, there was an astonishing animated short film called ‘Varmints’. It was directed by a guy called Marc Craste and self funded. He is part of a commercial animation studio in central London called StudioAKA, and Varmints, again funded by StudioAKA, was clearly a project of deep love. ‘Varmints’ is Marc’s second film, the first ‘JoJo In The Stars’ won a pile of awards, including the BAFTA – you can watch the whole film above.

You will see that Marc has a truly unique style, and that the story he weaves, while simple, is still emotional, powerful, tragic and beautiful. For me, this is CINEMA in the purest form. Minimal dialogues, broad emotional strokes, ugly images that are beautiful (and vice versa), characters that I connect with… It’s all great stuff. I hope he manages to pull off a feature one day.

You can watch the trailer for Varmints here. Stunning satuff.

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
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