The Missing Scarf is part of our April 17th lineup. Get your advance tickets now and we’ll see you there!
It seems only right that on this St. Patrick’s Day we should feature Irish filmmaker Eoin Duffy‘s work. I became familiar with him about a year ago when I saw his beautifully haunting short On Departure. Created in the aftermath of a family tragedy, that film was all at once an expression of grief, an attempt to come to terms with loss, and a tribute to a departed loved one. Not bad for five minutes of very minimalistic animation.
In his latest film, The Missing Scarf (created directly after On Departure), Duffy continues to deal with the aftermath of the tragedy. In this case, the plotline seems trivial, even silly, but the themes are heavy indeed. Albert the squirrel has misplaced his favourite scarf, and he approaches his other friends in the forest for help in finding it. But each of them has worries of their own, and he never seems to get any closer to finding his scarf. Confronting some of life’s greatest fears, which always seem to grow when life seems uncertain, Duffy makes a powerful statement while again using nothing but simple lines and cartoon-like characters.
The decision to cast George Takei as the narrator is a brilliant one. Takei’s sense of whimsy fits the film’s content perfectly, and I can picture him in the recording booth reading his lines with one eyebrow cheekily raised. The “child’s storybook” style of narration could lull the viewer into thinking this is a much simpler film than it is, but Takei’s presence should tip off the more perceptive audience members.
The film took about 7 months to complete using the open source 3D modelling software Blender 3D. It was funded by the Irish Film Board in conjunction with RTE (Ireland’s national television broadcaster) and the Arts Council of Ireland.
Duffy now lives and works in Vancouver, which makes it even more satisfying for us to be showing his work here in Toronto. Get your ticket and join us on April 17th for The Missing Scarf and more.