This film is by Film Bilder, the studio who made Head Up. This film, part of the Animanimals series by Julie Ocker, depicts the systematic and collective life of an ant colony. The military precision of the ants is an apt catalyst to discuss the … [Read more...]
Tierenduin [Whose Zoo]
This look-and-search book challenges the reader to see things differently. The mouth of a tiger hides the face of a sloth; the teeth of a snake become the icebergs upon which a polar bear roams. The book asks us to reconsider what we expect to see … [Read more...]
Where’s the Elephant?
Children, like adults, quickly develop sophisticated expectations of genre and style – for example, seeking to see the similarities that define certain types of picturebooks. This picturebook by French artist Barroux plays upon these expectations by … [Read more...]
Where’s the Starfish?
Barroux’s sequel to Where’s the Elephant? plays upon the same premise. The ludic format of the wimmelbook, such as Where’s Wally, becomes a catalyst for an important message about protecting the environment. Children will have great fun spotting the … [Read more...]
Meidän piti lähteä [We had to Leave]
This is another example of a wordless picturebook that deals with the topic of the migrant crisis. We Had to Leave is gentler and happier than the other examples in the corpus: Migrando [Migrating], Orizzonti [Horizons], and Mediterraneo [The … [Read more...]
Naar de Markt [To the Market]
This book is a simple depiction of a mother and daughter taking a trip to their local market. The reader is privy to a range of experiences, including a diverse set of foods and goods, sold by a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic array of tradespeople. … [Read more...]
Verrückte Welt [Topsy Turvy World]
German artist ATAK presents a carnivalesque theme of power negotiation in this representation of an upside down world. The banker begs on the street corner while the punk hands over spare change; the mouse chases the cat; a horse rides a jockey; a … [Read more...]
Szalontüdö [Tripe and Onions]
Live action films appear infrequently in the corpus, as do Hungarian films. This live action short is similar to French Roast in its use of an upside-down protagonist: a scruffy man, perhaps homeless, appears to eat the lunch of a Hungarian … [Read more...]
The Dog who was a Cat Inside
The premise of this short film is a dog and a cat that share the same body: although this sounds complicated, it is a clever use of the visual wordless form, clearly depicting a sense of identity ambivalence that all can relate to. The dog and the … [Read more...]
