14th Animation Division Encouragement Prize
The Wonder Hospital Short Animation
Animated short film [United States]
Beomsik Shimbe SHIM
Outline
A girl visits a mysterious hospital to chase the ideal “after” image of plastic surgery, where she encounters the bizarre behaviors of mysterious creatures one after another. What is the “beauty” she has gained after wandering through the out-of-theordinary journey? A surreal experience through a mysterious hospital that alters the perception of physical beauty is depicted in this film filled with imagination, using 3D and puppet animation.
Reason for Award
An attractive never-ending cloistered wandering of a physiological sense of floating
The Encouragement Prize goes to a short film created by a student in the United States. It is a kooky animated piece made with CG and puppets, which has no spoken lines. From the binocular vision video of red and blue glasses, to the puppet with a slightly bentnose attached on a strange location, to the characters inside the hospital, everything about this film is slightly off kilter. We start off proceeding through a hospital in search for the ideal “after” (i.e., a successful surgery), but after a while, we feel as if we are in a never-ending corridor, losing sight of what exactly “after” is. I wonder if this is a feeling experienced by the artist himself, of someone who acquires advanced technical skills but yet wanders through the modern times. Artists in their 20s all over the world are being characterized as “brooding,” but if this is a reflection of our modern society, who is to heed this as a wake up call? While this work perplexes the consciousness of the audience, the impression that it actually imparts is neither heavy nor sad. The main reason for this film being awarded is its quality that gives off a distinct ive physiological sense of floating.