Canvas

The only stop motion offering in the EIFF's World Animation 1 screening, Canvas is a bold little film with shades of Pollock, Shelley, and Lovecraft. Its protagonist is an artist, half mechanical, unnatural himself, who is drawn to complete a canvas in ways that begin to dismay, then disturb, and more.

It's a striking little tale, in many ways similar to those old Soviet Bloc animations with vomiting soup cans and revolting pots of paint. That's not a strike against it by any means - it is as memorable, and as intriguing.