Join us for a stimulating screening of rarely seen expressive Colombian animation featuring powerful metaphors, surreal landscapes and haunting images. These groundbreaking experimental films utilize animation techniques ranging from rotoscoping to under-the-camera animation, capturing the imagination and challenging traditional concepts of cinema. A thought-provoking conversation will examine the role of art in the context of war and the role of the artist in politics. The discussion will feature Colombian filmmakers Cecilia Traslaviña and Carlos Santa; international media scholars Janeann Dill and Cristina Venegas; and USC student Juan Camilo González.

About the participants:

Janeann Dill is an artist and scholar and author of the forthcoming book Thought and Timing, Philosophy of Experimental Animation. Dill has presented papers in numerous conferences worldwide, including the Tawasul II Design Conference in Saudi Arabia and the Danish Animation Studies conference held at the University of Copenhagen. She has received numerous awards, including an Ahmanson Foundation grant, an Annenberg Foundation independent-media grant and a James Irvine Foundation grant. Her award-winning film Paris Is a Woman has been screened internationally.

Juan Camilo González is an MFA student in the John C. Hench Division of Animation and Digital Arts at USC. Born in Manizales, Colombia, González met filmmakers Cecilia Traslaviña and Carlos Santa while a student in the visual-arts program at Javeriana University in Bogotá. González worked on Traslaviña’s film Almas Santas Almas Pacientes and Santa’s epic feature film Los Extraños Presagios de Leon Prozac. González’s own films include Los Tres Errantes and Mecanismo Olvidador.

Carlos Santa is the pioneer of experimental animation in Colombia and mentor of many young Colombian artists today. His works seduce us with their beauty, but then shock us by revealing the complex roles of contemporary people immersed in our own tragedies. His films include El pasajero de la noche, La selva oscura and Los Extraños Presagios de Leon Prozac.

Cecilia Traslaviña was born in Bogotá, Colombia. She has worked at Javeriana University as an animation teacher and coordinator of the experimental-animation course. Her most recent work, Almas Santas Almas Pacientes (Holy Souls Patient Souls), was selected by several international film festivals and was included in the Colombian Experimental Animation program at the 6th IAFF ReAnimacja in Poland.

Cristina Venegas is an associate professor in film and media studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of Digital Dilemmas: The State, the Individual and Digital Media in Cuba and has written about film and political culture, revolutionary imagination in the Americas, telenovelas, contemporary Latin American cinema and Cuban cyberculture. She has curated numerous film programs on Latin American and indigenous film and is the co-founder and artistic director of the Latino CineMedia International Film Festival in Santa Barbara.

Organized by Sheila Sofian (Animation and Digital Arts).

For further information on this event:
visionsandvoices@usc.edu