Chris Robinson chats with the award-winning Canadian animator and artist.
Animation writer and Ottawa International Animation Festival programmer Chris Robinson sits down with a variety of animation types to fondle their minds through informal chats about animation, life and whatever else they feel like discussing.
In the latest episode of The Animation Pimpcast, Chris Robinson and Theodore Ushev meet up in a Montreal coffee shop on a brisk winter day to discuss Chris’ use of ‘umm’, destroying Norman McLaren, Ushev’s love/hate relationship with animation, and using his own blood to make a film.
Born in Kyustendil, Bulgaria, Theodore Ushev first made a name for himself as a poster artist in his native country before settling in Montreal, in 1999. There he quickly acquired a reputation as a prolific and gifted animator through films such as Tower Bawher (2005), The Man Who Waited (2006) and Drux Flux (2008). In 2010 he completed the critically acclaimed film, Lipsett Diaries, an imagined biography of the celebrated Canadian experimental filmmaker, which received the Genie Award for Best Animated Short at the 31st Genie Awards.
He created live show multimedia and promo animations for the British band Public Symphony and David Gilmour, and illustrations for Chris Robinson' book "Ballad of a Thin Man: In Search of Ryan Larkin" (2008).
In 2012 a short musical film, based on Demoni, a song by Bulgarian band Kottarashky, won more than 10 awards, including Nomination for the newly inaugurated Canadian Screen Awards. His most recent film, Gloria Victoria, has already received numerous prizes.
Ushev’s films have won more than 80 awards and mentions, and been shown in many retrospectives, including the Shortfilm Festival in Clermont-Ferrand, France. In 2011, Ushev’s drawings and paintings were exhibited in the Barbican Centre, London, UK.
His keen interest for the new visual forms led him to experiments with installations, interactive works on public spaces and virtual reality. His last works are "Diagonales" on the facade of Montreal Public Library, the installation "Third page from the Sun" and the action film, 100 prints of Norman. Erased. in which he erases - during 10 days in an aquarium at the Museum of Civilization in Quebec - the prints of the animation legend Norman McLaren.
A well-known figure in the world of independent animation, writer, author & curator Chris Robinson is the Artistic Director of the Ottawa International Animation Festival.
