Theodore Ushev
Theodore Asenov Ushev ( bg, Теодор Асенов Ушев; born 4 February 1968) is a Bulgarian animator, film director and screenwriter based in Montreal. He is best known for his work at the National Film Board of Canada, including the 2 ...
, produced in
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...
by the
National Film Board of Canada
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...
(NFB). A film without words set to the music of
Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, , group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his First Symphony in 1926 and was regarded throughout his life as a major compo ...
's ''
Leningrad Symphony
Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 60, nicknamed the ''Leningrad'', was begun in Leningrad, completed in the city of Samara (then known as Kuybyshev) in December 1941, and premiered in that city on March 5, 1942. At first dedica ...
'', ''Victoria Gloria ''is final film in a trilogy of NFB animated shorts by Ushev on art, ideology and power, following ''
Tower Bawher
''Tower Bawher'' is a 2005 constructivist-style abstract animated short by Theodore Ushev, set to the musical composition "Time, Forward!" by Russian composer Georgy Sviridov.
The film's title is an allusion to Tatlin's Tower, an unbuilt structu ...
'' (2005) and ''
Drux Flux
''Drux Flux'' is a 2008 animated short by Theodore Ushev, inspired by Herbert Marcuse’s treatise ''One-Dimensional Man''.
A film without words, ''Drux Flux'' uses figurative and abstract imagery to portray people as crushed by industry and pr ...
'' (2008).
Style
''Gloria Victoria'' uses
mixed media
In visual art, mixed media describes artwork in which more than one medium or material has been employed.
Assemblages, collages, and sculpture are three common examples of art using different media. Materials used to create mixed media art incl ...
techniques to create images that evoke bloody battlefields and the horrors of war, with imagery of combat and massacres from the
bombing of Dresden in World War II
The bombing of Dresden was a joint British and American aerial bombing attack on the city of Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony, during World War II. In four raids between 13 and 15 February 1945, 772 heavy bombers of the Roya ...
to
Guernica
Guernica (, ), official name (reflecting the Basque language) Gernika (), is a town in the province of Biscay, in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, Spain. The town of Guernica is one part (along with neighbouring Lumo) of the mu ...
, from the
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...
to ''
Star Wars
''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...
'', in a style inspired by
expressionism
Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...
,
constructivism
Constructivism may refer to:
Art and architecture
* Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes
* Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in Russia in the 1920s a ...
,
cubism
Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
as well as
surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...
. Ushev has stated that the film is "less geometric" in its animation than his previous works and that he sought to flatten the 3-D effect as the film progressed towards its climax, so as to convey the emotion of a human being at war.
The seven-minute film took Ushev two years to create, using
traditional animation
Traditional animation (or classical animation, cel animation, or hand-drawn animation) is an animation technique in which each frame is drawn by hand. The technique was the dominant form of animation in cinema until computer animation.
Proce ...
and
computer animation
Computer animation is the process used for digitally generating animations. The more general term computer-generated imagery (CGI) encompasses both static scenes (still images) and dynamic images (moving images), while computer animation refe ...
tools.
Release and reception
The film received the
FIPRESCI
The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI, short for Fédération Internationale de la PRESse CInématographique) is an association of national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the world fo ...
critics prize at the 2013
Annecy International Animated Film Festival
The Annecy International Animation Film Festival (french: Festival international du film d'animation d'Annecy, officially abbreviated in English as the Annecy Festival, or simply Annecy) was created in 1960 and takes place at the beginning of J ...
in June 2013. ''Gloria Victoria'' was screened as part of the Short Cuts Canada program at the
2013 Toronto International Film Festival
The 38th annual Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) took place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada between September 5 and 15, 2013. '' The Fifth Estate'' was selected as the opening film and '' Life of Crime'' was the closing film. 75 films were ...
. It was named as Most Well Liked Animated Short of 2013 in a survey of fifteen festival programmers and critics, selected by eleven out of fifteen people surveyed.
Accolades
In 2014, ''Gloria Victoria'' won the Golden Sheaf Award for Best
Animation
Animation is a method by which image, still figures are manipulated to appear as Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent cel, celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited ...
at the
Yorkton Film Festival
Yorkton Film Festival (YFF) is an annual film festival held in late May in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, Canada.
In 1947, the Yorkton Film Council (YFC) was founded and in 1950 the first international documentary film festival officially opened in we ...
. The film also got a nomination at 2014 Hollywood's
Annie Awards
The Annie Awards are accolades which the Los Angeles branch of the International Animated Film Association, ASIFA-Hollywood, has presented each year since 1972 to recognize excellence in animation shown in cinema and television. Originally desig ...
.
The film was a
Canadian Screen Award
The Canadian Screen Awards (french: link=no, Les prix Écrans canadiens) are awards given for artistic and technical merit in the film industry recognizing excellence in Canadian film, English-language television, and digital media (web series) p ...
nominee for
Best Animated Short
The Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film is an award given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) as part of the annual Academy Awards, or Oscars, since the 5th Academy Awards (with different names), covering the year ...