The Light Fantastick
1974 · 57m · Canada
Directed by Rupert Glover, Michel Patenaude
Genres: animation, documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, whimsical
A retrospective surveys animation at the National Film Board of Canada, explaining techniques such as drawn-on-film, pixillation and pinscreen through clips and demonstrations.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
It's a *film about film* from 1974 that refuses to pick a lane—part documentary, part essay, part animated demo reel—and most people would call that muddled, but there's something genuinely subversive about using the medium to deconstruct itself while you're watching it happen.
A crystalline example of the essay film as formal argument: Glover and Patenaude situate animation within its own lineage and technical genealogy, using the NFB archive not as nostalgia but as proof of concept, each technique illuminated through its own demonstration—rigorous curatorial thinking made visible.
The pinscreen sequences are the tell: rather than smooth them into polished animation, they let the hand-built imperfection and real-time construction remain visible, a single editorial choice that transforms a technical survey into something that feels alive and handmade.