Three shorts – “Suzie in the Garden” (2022), “Love, Dad” (2021) and “Red Shoes” (2021) – are brought together in this 40 minute program.
Moving with her mum and dad, Suzie leaves the city and plunges into the joys of country-living. One day, she meets a black dog and discovers a mysterious garden through a small opening in a fence. A charming tale of childhood, “Suzie in the Garden” calls to the wonders of imagination and nature and captures them through the unusual animation of painting on glass.
The village party has begun, and Róza hasn’t been invited to dance – until a stranger, who Róza doesn’t know, gives her a pair of red shoes. Róza starts to dance with great passion, but her performance soon descends into something much darker when she discovers the shoes have a mind of their own. Anna Podskalská’s “Red Shoes” animates a European folk tale with artistic force and whirlwind intensity.
“Love, Dad” is a short film about the distance between a child and a parent, the weight of parental love, and the loneliness that silence can bring. Nestling into her own story, the director, Diana Cam Van Nguyen, uncovers 15 year old letters of affection from her Dad – letters that he wrote to her from prison – in an attempt to rediscover his love. This touching, ingeniously animated short is a remarkable feat of style and biographical storytelling.