Clara — Isobel Knowles & Van Sowerwine

Clara (2004)

Special Mention, 58th Cannes Film Festival
Golden Hugo for Best Animation at the 2005 Chicago Film Festival.
Finalist, Yoram Gross Animation Award, 2005 Dendy Awards for Australian Short Films, Sydney Film Festival.
58th Cannes Film Festival, Cannes, France. May 2005 (World Premiere).
52nd Sydney Film Festival, Sydney, Australia. June 2005.
Anima Mundi 2005, 13th International Animation Festival of Brazil. July 2005, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil.
2005 Melbourne International Film Festival, Melbourne, Australia. August 2005.
2005 Brisbane International Film Festival, Brisbane, Australia. August 2005.
12th KROK International Animated Film Festival, Russia and Ukraine. September 2005.
Milan Film Festival, Italy. 16 – 25 September 2005.
12th Women Make Waves Film and Video Festival, Taiwan. October 2005.
41st Chicago International Film Festival, USA. 6 – 20 October 2005.
Cinanima, Portugal. 7 – 13 November 2005.
AFI Fest 2005, Los Angles, USA. 2-9 November 2005.
16th Stockholm International Film Festival, Sweden. 17-27 November 2005.
RESFEST 2005 , November – December 2005, Sydney and Melbourne Australia.
2006 Sundance Film Festival, January 19 – 29 2006, Park City, Utah, USA.
30th Hong Kong International Film Festival, 4 – 19 April 2006.
8th Women’s Film Festival in Seoul, 4 – 19 April 2006.
San Francisco Women’s Film Festival 19 – 30 April 2006.
Written and Directed by
Van Sowerwine
Animated by
Isobel Knowles
Produced by
Philippa Campey

A Film Victoria Short Film Fund Production.
Director of Photography
Jon Bilington
Additional D.O.P.
Isobel Knowles
Sound Designer
Jennifer Sochackyj
Model & Armature Maker
Scott Ebdon
Editor
Cassandra Tytler
Character Creation & Wardrobe
Fiona Edwards
Original Character Drawings
George Stasjic
Character Design & Sculpt
Van Sowerwine
Additional Model Makers*
Glen Hunwick & Rob Gudan
Stills Photographer
Cameron Bird
Post Production Animation
Isobel Knowles
Visual Effects
John Brawley
Titles and Additional Effects
Van Sowerwine
Colourist
Justin Heitman
FCP Post Production
Chris Dea
Post Production Supervisor Penelope Teal
Digital Pictures Melbourne
Sound Mixer
Robert Mackenzie
Sound Mix Facility
Soundfirm Pty Ltd
Facility Liaison
Clare Carmody
Foley Artist
Isobel Knowles
Studio
179 Film Offices
Super 16 Camera Hire
Blue Crow Productions
Laboratory
Cinevex Film Laboratories
Production Accountant
Monika Gehrt
Legals
Shaun Miller
Marshalls & Dent Lawyers
Thanks to
Everyone at 179 Film Offices, Philip Brophy , Anthea Caddy, Melanie Coombs, Martine Corompt, Jeremy Dower, Adam Elliot, Madeleine Griffith, Camilla Hannan , Nick Hilligoss, John Hughes , Liz Hughes , Sam Jinks, Haima Marriot , Carmel McAloon, Kris Mrksa, Briony Ridley, RMIT Media Arts, Alistair Robbie, Charlotte Seymour, Rodney Shar, Sam Sowerwine
Dennis Tupicoff
Chris Zwar
Special thanks to
Glen Art Productions
Special thanks to
Kodak Motion Picture FilmDescription text goes here

A stop motion animation about a twelve year old girl whose world has just changed forever.

Clara is a 7 minute stop motion animation about a twelve year old girl. It uses silicon puppets and realistic sets to create a sense of both sadness and enchantment.

Struggling with a massive change in her life, 12-year-old Clara is disoriented and confused. Her efforts to remedy the situation and make sense of her new world are thwarted when flowers attack her and ants invade her home. Her enchanted childhood has changed forever.

Director's Notes

CLARA slips under the veneer of suburban normality of Clara's life into the depths of her feelings of loss, grief and anger.

There is a point in most of our lives when we begin to realise that terrible things can happen, and that nothing is permanent. This is particularly evident when we are confronted with death at an early age.

CLARA is a very personal story for me, a story that resonates many of my own experiences as I made the transition from childhood to adolescence. It is also a story about the terrible pain that we all can experience at any time in our lives. Ultimately, it is a story about both the resilience in all of us when confronted with terrible pain, and the beauty and terrible sadness that surrounds us at all times.

I have always been fascinated with stop motion animation. I feel it has a certain magical quality to it. I first became interested in using stop motion animation to animate plastic dolls I collected – I found myself drawn to particular dolls, around which I would develop a narrative that I would then animate. I then began sculpting my own animated characters as I became more interested in creating worlds that are a blend of the real and the magical.

This has culminated for me in the creation of CLARA, the first fully funded animation production I have written and directed. CLARA is set in Melbourne in the present day, and the sets are very realistic copies of parks and houses near where I live. Clara herself is made of silicon, a material that looks flesh-like, adding to the sense of realism in the film.

The realism in the film is juxtaposed with the strange and terrible things that happen to Clara. For me, this juxtaposition mirrors the precariousness of our existence – while we may exist in a happy, ‘normal’ world, terrible and strange things can happen to any of us at any time. At all times we are surrounded by and cannot escape death; this does not prevent us from also finding beauty and happiness in life.

Clara finds her keys to open the front door.

Behind The Scenes

Clara (2004)

Director's Notes

Behind The Scenes

Out in the Open

It's a jungle in here