Blind Vaysha
2016 · 8m · Canada
Directed by Theodore Ushev
Genres: animation, experimental, fantasy
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, surreal
A girl born with one eye that sees only the past and one that sees only the future remains trapped, unable to inhabit the present.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Ushev's premise is genuinely disorienting—a girl split between past and future, unable to touch the present—but the execution leans too lyrical, too carefully composed; it's experimental enough to get into festivals, not weird enough to actually unsettle you.
A formally exquisite meditation on temporal fragmentation that locates itself squarely in the lineage of Eastern European animation and philosophical fable; the split-screen and rotoscopic technique function as more than decoration—they're the film's argument about consciousness itself.
The decision to render past and future in distinct visual languages—one decaying, one crystalline—on opposite sides of the frame is the entire film, and Ushev commits to it so completely that an 8-minute premise becomes genuinely haunting.
Reviews
Visually, this is one of the program's most impressive offerings, but when it was done, I was still waiting for the payoff. My mind had been engaged, but my heart had not yet been moved.
Festivals
- Academy Awards 2017, Nominee – Best Animated Short Film