ANN MARIE FLEMING
Commonly regarded as the most important animation event in the world, the Annecy International Animation Film Festival will screen Ann Marie Fleming’s animated feature “Window Horses”. The current Phil Lind Artist in Residence in the Rogers Multicultural Film Production Program in the department of UBC Theatre and Film, Ann Marie’s film is included with only nine animated features and one of only two Canadian entries in the official competition in the Annency, France festival, running June 13-18, 2016.
A story about love – love of family, poetry, history, culture, “Window Horses” centers around Rosie Ming (the voice of Sandra Oh), a young Canadian poet, invited to perform at a Poetry Festival in Shiraz, Iran. Living at home with her over-protective Chinese grandparents, she has never been anywhere by herself.
Once in Iran, she finds herself in the company of poets and Persians, who tell her stories that force her to confront her past: the Iranian father she assumed abandoned her and the nature of poetry itself.
Building bridges between cultural and generational divides, it’s about curiosity, remaining open to possibility and finding your voice through the magic of poetry.
We applaud Ann Marie’s enormous achievement.
Say’s Ann Marie, “This film is our small effort to try and add a little more peace, love and understanding to our increasingly complex and conflicted world through art, poetry, history and culture.”
Quote from Sandra Oh (of Grey’s Anatomy fame) :
“Window Horses hits all the things that are important to me: it’s pro-girl, pro-tolerance, pro-diversity and PRO-ART!! My nieces are mixed race and it’s very important to me that they see themselves represented in this society.”
- Ann Marie’s website: http://www.sleepydogfilm.com
- Window Horses website: http://www.windowhorses.com
- Window Horse’s trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2gZGNMz9wI
Media from Variety and Skwigly, Online Animation Magazine:
- http://variety.com/2016/film/festivals/annecy-animation-festival-didier-brunner-window-horses-nuts-seoul-station-1201761015/
- http://www.skwigly.co.uk/annecy-2016-nfb/
BIO:
Ann Marie Fleming has been making work about family, history and memory for almost 30 years. She works in animation, documentary and dramatic genres and in short and feature length formats, and across all platforms. She has a B.A. English Honours from UBC (with a minor in theatre), a B.F.A. and diploma in animation from Emily Carr, and an M.F.A. in interdisciplinary studies from S.F.U., as well as doing artist residencies at the Canadian Film Center and The Akademie Schloss Soliitude. She has taught Chicago’s School of the Art Institute and Emily Carr University, as well as given workshops and lectures in Universities across North America, Asia and Europe. Her over 30 films have won numerous awards, from Student festivals, to TIFF, and her first graphic novel, adapted from her documentary film, “The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam”, won the Doug Wright best Canadian comic and was nominated for 2 Eisner Awards. Being mixed race, of Chinese and European heritage, using humour as a tool, Ann Marie has made issues of hybridity, diaspora and cross-cultural and inter-generational understanding from a feminist perspective part of almost everything she does.
Selected Awards:
- 1990 New Shoes: an interview in exactly 5 minutes (writer, director, producer, editor, animator) best Canadian short film, TIFF
- 2002 Blue Skies (writer, director, executive producer)- FIPRESCI mention, Montreal World Film Festival, Best Canadian short Film, TIFF
- 2003 The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam writer, director, editor, producer) – Best Documentary, San Diego Asian Film Festival, Victoria Independent Film Festival, Canadian Asian History Month featured film
- 2005 The French Guy (writer, director, producer)- best feature, Boston Underground Film Festival
- 2010 I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors (writer, director) – best Animated Film, R2R Film Festival (youth jury), TIFF Top 10
