Islet

Hollywood, 1927: As silent movie star George Valentin wonders if the arrival of talking pictures will cause him to fade into oblivion, he sparks with Peppy Miller, a young dancer set for a big break.

In the vestibule of a hospital room, a young boy waits to see his dying mother. The clamor and spiralling movements of bodies around him intensify, forming a grotesque circus—a cacophonous circle that pushes the child back, depriving him of one final touch of his mother's hand. Using rotoscoped drawings suggestive of charcoal sketches, as well as 3D and object animation techniques, The Circus compels viewing with its unsettling realism. Colour is employed metaphorically to subtly express the promise and the memory of maternal affection. Nicolas Brault's highly personal film, suffused with poetic modesty, casts a poignantly sincere gaze on the heartbreak of a child facing the fearful, mysterious experience of his mother's death.

The film is an abstract allegory, showing two penguins with different ideas abot sea creatures that are their food or their shadows, depending on the perspective. Basically, sense-twisting animation.

Under the African sun, a child walks in the desert with his kin. Death is prowling, but a mother's soul resurrected by music will return strength and life to the child when he becomes a man. Inspired by the grace and raw beauty of African rock paintings, Nicolas Brault paints a story without borders, with the humanity and elegance of a universal narrator.

Squame explores the body's sensitive envelope, the skin. The ephemeral animated desquamations, created with the help of sugar casts, evoke fragile landscapes in a world at the edge of abstraction. Somewhere between archeological artifacts and macroscopic observations, the friable frontiers of these human bodies elude our gaze.

Short animation by Nicolas Brault

This photographic exploration of family photo albums ravaged by water evokes hazy and indistinct memories, poignant witnesses of a fragile past.

A winter tale: the real experience of an imagined love.

It’s a known fact that opposites attract. The classically trained Chilly Gonzales and rock provocateur Peaches brought out the best in each other when they first met at a basement jam session. Coming from opposite ends of the spectrum, they found common ground in their willingness to cross over. Sometimes, an apple rotten with old ways can grow into a sturdy new tree.

Short animation from Nicolas Brault