Rabbit

We saw this animated short at Studio 35 over the weekend as part of The Animation Show. The Fun With Dick and Jane-inspired illustrations and vocabulary-enhancing labeled nouns create a nostalgic tone that quickly becomes ironic when greed and violence begin to blossom.

(PS We hung around for The Dead Girl written and directed by Karen Moncrieff, a dark, satisfying character-driven study of five women connected by a murder, all of them in search of emotional resuscitation. Great cast, careful direction, difficult with a humanizing payoff.)

Synopsis: A selection of 1950s educational stickers, found in a provincial junkshop twenty years ago, provide the ingredients for this adult fairytale. When a boy and girl find an idol in the stomach of a rabbit, its magical abilities lead to riches, but for how long? A modern mystery film of lost innocence, greed and nature.

"I love the look of the stickers and was excited by the prospect of creating a story from the finite selection of images. Biggest challenge was creating the movement of the protagonists from such a limited source." - Run Wake (writer, director, producer)