Nina Paley

Sita Sings the Blues

Utilizing the 1920s jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw, the epic Indian tale of exiled prince Ramayana and his bride Sita is mirrored by a spurned woman's contemporary personal life, and light-hearted but knowledgeable discussion of historical background by a trio of Indian shadow puppets.

Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet

Exiled artist and poet Mustafa embarks on a journey home with his housekeeper and her daughter; together the trio must evade the authorities who fear that the truth in Mustafa's words will incite rebellion.

Seder-Masochism

Loosely following a traditional Passover Seder, events from the Book of Exodus are retold by Moses, Aharon, the Angel of Death, Jesus, and the director's own father. But there's another side to this story: that of the Goddess, humankind's original deity. Seder-Masochism resurrects the Great Mother in a tragic struggle against the forces of Patriarchy.

Fetch!

A man plays fetch with his dog, only to have both him and his dog mired in a series of optical illusions.

Lexi

You don't need to be a cat lover to appreciate Nina Paley's gorgeous animated short (though it will be a dose of nip to you if you are). A loving set of color-treated, drawn-over images of the titular cat, seen playing and staring back at the camera to a suitably bright and bouncy score by Nik Phelps and the Sprocket Ensemble.

Copying Is Not Theft

Our free culture anthem gets a fabulous arrangement by Nik Phelps. Vocals by Connie Champagne. Animation and song by Nina Paley.

This Land is Mine

An animated short set to the tune of Pat Boone's Exodus Song satirizing the history of the land called Israel/Palestine/Canaan/the Levant.

No One Left to Offend

Throughout the 1990s, a group of MIT engineers and artists lead by cross-dressing musician and programmer Chris Korda form a faux suicide cult that uses a unique blend of Neo-Dadaism, culture jamming, and media-hijacking pranksterism to provoke cognitive dissonance, challenge anti-abortion domestic terrorists, and attempt to save the planet from imminent environmental catastrophe; a meditation on outrage culture and the power of controversy in a burgeoning attention economy.

Thank You for Not Breeding

Biologists estimate 20,000 to 40,000 species go extinct every year, many times higher than the "background extinction rate" built into the evolutionary process. The cause? Human environmental impact, the product of consumption times population. Many environmentalists focus on our excessive consumption, but discussing the latter factor in the equation - population - has fallen out of vogue. Welcome to environmentalism's radical fringe: the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement and the Church of Euthanasia. Armed with slogans like "Thank You For Not Breeding" and "Live Long and Die Out," their ideas are usually greeted with laughter or hostility. But beneath the silliness, do they have a point? Through humorous animation and live-action interviews with academics, economists, and activists across the political spectrum, "Thank You For Not Breeding" takes a new look at our species, our environment, and our future.