Elizabeth Hobbs’ award-winning animation The Flounder to launch on Vimeo

We are delighted to announce that we will launch The Flounder by Elizabeth Hobbs on Vimeo in June. The film is inspired by the Brothers Grimm’s fairytale The Fisherman and His Wife. With dashes of fantasy and drollery, the film shows how humanity’s greed and overconsumption impacts on our environment.

We are also thrilled that I’m OK, Elizabeth Hobbs’ experimental short about Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka, is now available to view on Vimeo and has had the honour of being selected as a Staff Pick. I’m OK was a co-production with the National Film Board of Canada and was nominated for the BAFTA for British Short Animation in 2019.

For both films Elizabeth Hobbs worked with ink and paint on paper to create the colourful worlds of the protagonists. In The Flounder, the vibrant world of the flounder and the ever expanding lodgings of the fisherman and his wife are rendered by hand with the chapters of the story punctuated by moments of transformation, where the A6 sheets of paper that Hobbs works with are scrunched up, ripped and cut to pieces. The artist’s hand in crafting the work is visible from the start when the flounder comes to life, painted on the fresh sheet of paper.

In the film, the fisherman catches an enchanted fish who offers to grant him a wish in exchange for freedom. After the man returns the fish to the water, he tells his wife of the strange incident, and they decide to ask the fish to use its powers to improve their circumstances. Not content with the grand residence and needless trappings it bestows upon them, they return to see the fish again and again, each time becoming more ambitious with their demands. As their greed grows, the world around them becomes more and more disturbed; the oceans rise, and the earth becomes more polluted and dangerous.

Celebrated German composer Carola Bauckholt collaborated with Hobbs on the film and created a stirring and spirited score that compliments the vivid visuals and literally tolls a warning bell for our wicked behaviour. The score is performed by Austrian music ensemble Klangforum Wien, who brought the artist and composer together for their Happiness Machine project. Since February 2019 the Happiness Machine has toured Europe as both a live concert performance and single screen programme. Presentations have included ECLAT Contemporary Music Festival, Tricky Women Festival, Hamburg Internationales Musikfest, and Sarajevo Film Festival amongst others.

The Flounder won the Best of the Festival Award and the Best Sound Design at London International Animation Festival 2019, and Best Professional Film at Turku Animated Film Festival 2019. Its festival screenings include Ottawa International Animation Festival, Kaboom Animation Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Cinanima International Animation Festival, and the McLaren Award programme at Edinburgh International Film Festival.

Elizabeth Hobbs previously collaborated with Animate Projects on the production of Imperial Provisor Frombald, a monstrous short film created with rubber stamps on film, made for Channel 4’s Random Acts in 2013. More recently, on production of the BAFTA nominated short I’m OK.