Afloat at Dawn

The Limited Bird

January 1989 •English

John's first independent work from 1989. Won Best of Fest Shorts at the Cinequest Film Festival, CA. The film is comprised of highly rendered drawings with very little moving parts to tell a complex story of relationships "gone to the birds".

Le premier cigare

June 1897 •French

Since this is lost the content of the film can only be presumed but it was supposedly depicted a schoolboy smoking his first cigar.

Les clowns Price

January 1898 •French

Dogs

April 2021 •English

A young Polish partisan flees from the Warsaw Uprising. Whilst hiding in the yard of a countryside manor, he is chased up a tree by a large wolfhound. With his rifle out of reach, there seems to be no way to escape his predicament.

Futon

May 2012 •Japanese

Wrapped in the futon... Memories are coming up to the mind, the future is imagined, senses are recaptured, physical feelings as a woman are deeply ingrained...Everything melts pleasantly all together. In the futon, the body wonders seeking for these sense...

Promesses

January 1992 •French

An 8-minute satire on politics featuring the first French presidential election campaign broadcasts from 1965 and The Shadoks.

I Saw the Future

August 2017 •English

In a dark expanse that could be the cosmos, we hear the voice of Arthur C. Clarke, whose face - taken from a BBC archive dating back to the 1960s - appears in the distance. His features quickly dematerialize into a multitude of shimmering pixels, creating an enveloping and immersive space out of which the thoughts of the famed author of «2001: A Space Odyssey» emerge. At the heart of this spectral environment, and with a magnetic voice sending us back to the time of cathode ray tubes and the golden age of television broadcasting, A C. Clarke tells us about the arrival of digital revolution, decades ahead of his time. This film is an invitation to travel, and a crepuscular form of poetry to be experienced immersively.

Apple Thieves

January 1966 •Hungarian

Two thieving gloves try to snatch an apple.

Lili

October 2008 •Estonian

A herd of war-torn and hungry rats tries to get an answer to the question of who is Lili Marleen from a mortally wounded young soldier stuck in a projectile funnel. Is it a reminder of first love or first relationship with a prostitute earning her daily bread? Lili Marleen is not just a distant heroine from a song. Every soldier boy has her own Lili, be it his first love from school or just an imagination. But always, no matter what happens, she is waiting for her soldier underneath the lantern by the barrack gate...

Winter of the Witch

October 1969 •English

The life of a witch is disrupted by the arrival of a boy and his mother. The intruders' presence makes her struggle to adjust to the modern world, and to change from bad to good witch. Based on the book "Old Black Witch" by Wende and Harry Devlin.

△▽

November 2018 •English

Experimental one minute corridor animation from Connor Griffith

Angels Unaware

October 2022 •English

God sends the archangel, Eden, to Earth where she is placed with people who are about to make a life decision that could negatively impact them and others around them. Will Eden be able to help, or will her brother Lucifer get in the way?

Mickey and the Beanstalk

September 1947 •English

A mysterious thief has stolen the prosperous Happy Valley's most prized possession: the musical Singing Harp. Can Mickey, Donald, and Goofy find the answer in the irritable Willie the Giant's magnificent castle up in the blue sky?

Alma

June 2009 •English

Alma, a little girl, skips through the snow covered streets of a small town. Her attention is caught by a strange doll in an antique toy shop window. Fascinated, Alma decides to enter.

Please Say Something

September 2008 •English

A troubled relationship between a Cat & Mouse set in the distant future.

Apocalypse Now Now

August 2017 •English

Snarky, monster-porn-dealing teen, Baxter Zevcenko, might be a serial killer. His girlfriend, Esme, is missing, and he’s the prime suspect. To clear his name, he’ll turn to Cape Town’s grizzliest, drunkest bounty hunter, Jackson ‘Jackie’ Ronin. Little does he know that Ronin is a supernatural bounty-hunter, and that he’s about to be dragged headlong into a deep, dark Cape Town underbelly full of monsters and myth, shadowy government forces, bloodthirsty crow-men and a conspiracy across time and space.

America the Beautiful

November 2023 •English

The [parody] of the opening credits of the "Simpsons" series, [but] with an original story and an all-new couch gag. (Shortverse)

Michelangelo

January 1976 •English

Animated short film of Michelangelo set to Beethoven Symphony No. 5 - I. Allegro con brio.

Dear Janice

September 1972 •English

Beckett cycles through a limited number of drawings, but adds new information to each drawing every time we see it, giving the sense of a world that is infinitely rich and also obviously contained tightly within the edges of the paper. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with iotaCenter and National Film Preservation Foundation in 2007.

Flesh Flows

September 1974 •English

“[T]he sense of moving forward [in space or time] alternates with a sense of expansion and contraction, as the finished cycle [of movement] returns to itself and rushes to catch up with its successor.” (Gadassik) Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with iotaCenter and National Film Preservation Foundation in 2007.