Affairs of the Art

Director Joanna Quinn's lovable protagonist Beryl returns, telling her own story of her childhood, her family, and herself as an artist and a mother.

The storytelling in Affairs of the Art is fluid and compelling, the characters strikingly honest, and Joanna's distinctive style absolutely captivating. In this film about art, each hand drawn frame of the animation is a work of art in itself.

Affairs of the Art absolutely deserves all the awards buzz it's received, with wins across the festival circuit as well as BAFTA and Oscar nominations.

I'm not surprised by these reviews, especially in times that people are waaay extra politically correct and this short has no shame to be offensive and provocative.

Love every second of it. It was hilarious, with meaningful society criticisim, cool animation and unafraid to shock. My type of thing, my favourite of the shorts I've watched this year, but will never win the Oscars.

The animation is truly incredible. Now, I usually enjoy quirky characters, but there was just way too much animal abuse in this short for me, that it was repulsive and the disgusting sister and the dead body was very hard to watch. While I'm happy NFB got an Oscar nod, I just wish it was for a different film.

Let's start with the animation; imagine if you took the animation of the Aha song Take on me, passed it to artist Gerald Scarfe to colour, then let Raymond Briggs round the contours of the drawings out before passing it to the animation team behind Akira for camera angles before they pass it back to Briggs, then letting it marinate in the cruelty of early 70s: the animation is spell binding and draws you in, and that's the really clever part of the hook, because when the film moves on to the cruelty of children and how vengeful they can be, you can't look away.

The story is a life snapshot of. Beryl, a child of the sixties recounting her family life events, and how she arrived at nearly 60 realising that her opportunity in art may have slipped by.

That's all I'm going to give you! Just bloody watch it!

Greetings again from the darkness. Is it acceptable to call Joanna Quinn and writer Les Mills 'frequent collaborators' when they have only made 4 short films together over a 34-year period? Regardless, this is their first since the BAFTA nominated DREAMS AND DESIRES: FAMILY TAKES (2006), and it features the return of the character Beryl (voiced again by Menna Trussler). This time their work has been rewarded with an Oscar nomination for Animated Short Film.

Beryl is an older lady admittedly obsessed with art. She's been that way since childhood and we see that she drew 'all the time', including the walls of her bedroom. During this 16-minute short film, Beryl reminisces about her family and the role art has played in her life. She explains how each family member had their own obsession, and mind you, Beryl is presenting all of this through the eye of an artist. The visuals and (hand-drawn) animation are truly spectacular and fit so well with Beryl's frenetic storytelling.

We each have our own zany family stories, and Ms. Quinn uses Beryl to discuss obsessive behavior. Topics include plastic surgery, taxidermy, and death ... each captured with artistic flair. There is a great line about being 'Trigger-happy', and this may be also be about "hyper-futurism" or vodka, take your pick.