Projects

COMPLETED FILMS

Dutch girl on bicycle

 55 Socks director Oscar winner Co Hoedeman Based on a poem by Marie Jacobs, the animated short pays tribute to the ingenuity of the Dutch people during a dark period of their history – the winter of hunger in 1944-45. It’s the closing months of the war in occupied Holland and some women unravel a beautiful bedspread in order to knit 55 socks to barter for food. Reaching back into his childhood memories, Hoedeman has made a simple, poetic film of rare beauty. Music by Chiwawa. An international co-production with Coconino Netherlands and The National Film Board of Canada

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ryan’s Renaissance Documentary. Completed. 2011.  Nicola Zavaglia,Laurie Gordon

Ryan’s Renaissance chronicles an improbable human journey, friendship, and what transpires after Oscar nominated Ryan Larkin (Walking) becomes the world’s most famous panhandler after the film “Ryan” wins an Academy Award. It begins when Ryan, still living at a homeless shelter and Laurie Gordon, a Montreal musician asks Ryan to “draw a few pictures” for her band’s video which  serendipitously becomes Spare Change, Ryan’s first animation film in 35 years.  We follow this  quirky duo’s utopian attempt to get their film off the ground. Ryan’s generous unconcern for the  camera eye allows us to witness unbearable moments of human pain, hilarious events, and  gripping insight into creativity, vision, and a yearning for a place to call home.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Spare Change. Short Animation. Completed. 2009, Dir. Ryan Larkin, Laurie Gordon

This animation short by Ryan Larkin (Walking, Street Musique, etc.) recounts some “comical experiences” Larkin had during his many years as a panhandler in Montreal. It tells the story of Astral Pan, a street beggar (voiced by Larkin himself), who takes us on a wild journey from the sidewalks of a wintry Montreal day, to the gates of Heaven and Hell and back. The great filmmaker passed away before finishing his film. Spare Change was completed by a friend, producer and singer-songwriter Laurie Gordon, assisted by a team of young, devoted animators.

Original music by Laurie Gordon’s band Chiwawa, featuring the single “Do It For Me.”

:

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In Development:

I Spy My Father. Documentary.director. Laurie Gordon. Completion 2013

Suspecting he was a spy, a daughter follows the trail of the fathershe never knew. She is the last in the line of her father’s family, killed by the Nazi Einsatzgruppen, in one of the first massacres before the Final Solution was devised. The only audio in existence of his voice recounting the annihilation of his entire family, is her father’s testimony at the Eichmann trial, as the accused listens intently. Returning to contemporary EU Hungary she discovers extreme political parties sit in parliament, racism is mainstream and journalists with opposing views are silenced, awakening in her, a startling reality.

A Love Story. Short documentary Dir. Gerald Potterton

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In Development: Riders of Death Valley. Director Gerald Potterton Completion 2013

Short Animated Biography

Memories remembered, and narrated by the author, of his life in England from the early 1930’s until his 1950’s emigration to Canada, and illustrated through a fast changing series of sights and sounds via photographs,film clips,drawings,cartoons,paintings,animation,advertisementsetc to create a mostly humourous scrap book of those years.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

                                                                                                                                                                         In Development.  Cricket and Nipi. Documentary.  2013