Caroline Leaf

A short documentary about singers Kate and Anna McGarrigle made by animator Caroline Leaf.

A facially disfigured author's life with her guardian of a sister is disrupted when a stranger arrives at their door, claiming to be a fan.

This film deals with a Jewish family in Montreal, Canada as they care for a dying grandmother and the young boy who is impatient to get the room he was promised as soon as she kicks the bucket.

I Met a Man is a piece of whimsy inspired by the ever present whistling wind on the Irish coast of County Cork where the filmmaker was living when she made the film. The film is scratched in 35mm film stock with color added in video postproduction.

An animated adaptation of Franz Kafka’s acclaimed novella, “The Metamorphosis,” made from carving images into sand with glass.

In this short animation based on an Inuit legend, a goose captures the fancy of an owl, a weakness for which he will pay dearly. The sound effects and voices are Inuktitut, but the animation leaves no doubt as to the unfolding action. A story with the wry humor characteristic of many Inuit tales.

A trio of short films commissioned to be shown to visitors entering the National Freedom Center in Cincinnati Ohio. Freedom and Unfreedom by Aleksandra Korejwo uses sand animation. Slavery by Caroline Leaf shows the hardship of the life of a house slave in the American South before the Civil War, telling the events in one day in her life. The Underground Railroad by Luc Perez is the final film in the trilogy.

A freewheeling cinematic experience, this film is the work of two filmmakers who relate their perceptions of each other through their respective animation techniques. Images and words are paired in startling associations. Each does a visual portrait of the other, based on characteristic gestures and impressions. A combination of techniques and materials produces a film of rich visual texture shaped by the hands and heads of two very different people.

The story is designed to be part of a trilogy of animated films called Suite For Freedom, which was commissioned to be shown to visitors entering the National Freedom Center in Cinncinnati Ohio. Slavery shows the hardship of the life of a house slave in the American South before the Civil War, telling the events in one day in her life.

In this parable, a hungry fox hunts for his dinner one night in the jungle. Nearby is a tiger who is also pondering his next meal. The tiger catches the fox, but the cunning fox manages to outwit the proud tiger. This striking film uses cutouts and actors in masks to tell its tale. It will stimulate discussion on leadership qualities, such as brain versus brawn, on values and on conflict resolution.

This animated film about blind prejudice is based on a short story by Canadian author Wilma Riley. Mrs. Cherwak is Polish and owns a cow. Mrs. Meuser is a German with entrenched notions of cleanliness. She does not appreciate the cow's inevitable by-product. The film describes their conflict and its curious resolution over coffee and mincemeat pie. While the author chose to write about the Germans and the Poles she grew up with on the outskirts of Regina, the situation she describes could apply anywhere in the world.

Caroline Leaf’s films are renowned for their emotional content and graphic style, which evolves from the innovative hand-crafted animation techniques she invented: beach sand and painting on glass and scratching in the emulsion of film stock. The medium is always at the service of a dark and brooding storytelling touched by flashes of humour. This box set celebrating the talents of a master animator comprises all her classics: The Owl Who Married a Goose, The Street, The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa and Two Sisters, as well as Interview, made with Veronika Soul. The DVD includes a student film, an animated video done for MTV, a comprehensive biofilmography and a brand-new director’s commentary on Two Sisters.

In 1994, Caroline Leaf accepted the Sir Allen Sewell Fellowship to give a series of studio workshops and lectures to animation students at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University in Brisbane. In this film she talks about her work and demonstrates such techniques as sand animation, paint and cut-out animation and scratch animation.

Sand or Peter and the Wolf is a loose interpretation of the fable Peter and the Wolf, in which a boy's fear of the dark, the woods, and the wolf, is confronted and resolved. The film shows the extraordinary graphic possibilities of one of nature's most ordinary substances, sand.

Animated commercial short directed by Caroline Leaf.