ANIMATION IS EUROPE 1

curated by Giulietta Fara

“To be called anything is actually quite nice. Recently I was called ‘brilliant’ and ‘rubbish’ for the same film. Perfect.” This is how Phil Mulloy (August 29th, 1948-July 10th, 2025) describes himself. It is in honour of the recently deceased filmmaker that the new section, “Animation is Europe,” is being launched to explore directors and styles across independent and research European animation. By presenting a large selection of Mulloy’s short films, the section acts as an ideal companion to the long-established Italian Contemporary Animation segment of the Festival. Phil Mulloy, of British-Irish origins, began his career as a screenwriter and director of live-action films before devoting himself to animation in the late 1980s. His style, characterised by essential, rough black-and-white strokes, explores the human mind and its oddities, exposing the ridiculous, the macabre, and the absurd within interpersonal relationships. Alongside this introspective analysis, Mulloy is also interested in present-day society and its conventions, which he often ridicules in a surreal and ironic key and storytelling. The Ten Commandments series is hilarious: biblical precepts become absurd norms, exposing the perverted nature of organized religions (sixth commandment: would it be adultery if you were trapped on a spaceship with a woman?). The Intolerance trilogy, instead, offers a sarcastic parody of alien invasion films: we land on Planet Zog, whose inhabitants have their heads between their legs and their genitals on top of their necks. While the images show horrible, gruesome behaviours, the narrator describes them as the most natural thing in the world in a typical documentary style. Based on the memories of violinist and composer Alex Balanescu, The Wind of Changes goes back to black-and-white to characterise the character’s insecurities, while colour is only used symbolically. The live-action sequences act as an imaginary driving force to evoke the demons of the composer and his music. Finally, The Sexlife of a Chair is often mentioned as one of the director’s weirdest works. According to Mulloy, he was interested in a non-narrative structure here, using characters that weren’t easy to mould through animation. His aim was to achieve this with humour, breaking and reconstructing stereotypes scene after scene, in a crescendo of sex-related nonsense. The homage to Phil Mulloy is meant to spotlight one of the most outstanding, irreverent, and minimalist contemporary artists. An artist who speaks to adult audiences and does not expect to be loved or worshipped, but to be embraced in all his immense punk brutality. Stroke after stroke, scratch after scratch, we are pulled into the recesses of his cinema, pleasantly ensnared in his black-and-white world. 

The section’s name, “Animation is Europe,” is inspired by Guillermo del Toro’s famous statement, “Animation is Film,” which he made upon receiving the Academy Award for his film Pinocchio, pointing his finger against those who intend to relegate animated film to “a genre for kids.”