Dreams Come True: A Sheldon Cohen Retrospective
2005 · 15m · Canada
Directed by Sheldon Cohen
Genres: animation, biography, documentary
Tones: contemplative, tender, whimsical
Author Roch Carrier hosts a retrospective on animation director Sheldon Cohen's thirty years at the NFB. Excerpts and new illustrations highlight Cohen's adaptations of Canadian children's books, including The Sweater and Snow Cat.
Picked by Margot
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A retrospective about a retrospective—the most aggressively canonical move possible, and it commits to the bit so earnestly that it almost works; almost, but not quite enough to escape feeling like institutional navel-gazing dressed up in watercolor.
Carrier's voiceover anchors a formally elegant survey of Cohen's thirty-year practice, where the interplay between archival animation and new illustration creates a sustained meditation on artistic legacy within the NFB's lineage—exactly the kind of self-aware institutional portrait that rewards close attention.
The decision to have new illustrations created *in response to* Cohen's original work, rather than simply displaying it, is the pivot that transforms this from archival exercise into genuine creative dialogue—a small formal choice that reframes what a retrospective can be.