Insomnia
2017 · 2m · France
Directed by Islena Neira
Genres: animation, experimental
Tones: contemplative, surreal, whimsical
A big-eared child lies awake at night, drifting through the strange, restless visions that come with a sleepless mind. A halftone-and-linocut-styled student animation made in five days at EMCA, inspired by French poetry, comics, and Japanese experimental animation.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A student film made in five days shouldn't work this hard to resist moving, but Neira's refusal to animate smoothly—those long printed holds that dare you to stay bored—is genuinely subversive in a landscape of buttery motion.
The halftone-and-linocut fusion reads as a deliberate conversation with both printmaking tradition and the graphic novel canon, each frame holding itself like a woodblock study; the restraint in animation becomes a formal argument about what a moving image actually needs.
The decision to animate sparsely and hold on each illustrated frame transforms a five-day student constraint into the film's entire nervous system—those static moments become more unsettling than any smooth transition could, and that's the choice that makes it work.
Reviews
Islena Neira's halftone animation depicts a sleepless night
Watch this student animator's quirky film about insomnia