Directed by Anita Lebeau

Logline: Sara pursues a floating pushpin through one dreamy night.

Synopsis: Sara and her cat Sunny find themselves on a journey through a series of strange rooms that contain both the bewildering and the oddly familiar. 8 Rooms is about the power in dreams to transport us to unexpected and unexplored places.

Distribution Contact: WFG

More Details

RUNTIME: 11 Minutes
GENRE: Animation
PRODUCTION FORMAT: 4K, HD
LANGUAGE: English
LOCATION: Manitoba
KEYWORDS: Adventure, Art, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Film/ Video Art, Music, Spirituality, Dreamy, Dreaming

Director's Statement: This project was built upon a recurring motif in my dreams – undiscovered rooms, or rooms filled with clutter that I know is of my making and belongs to me but is also unfamiliar. In dream analysis, rooms are sometimes seen as parts of oneself that have yet to be discovered, or aspects of one’s life that ought to be examined – especially when a particular space recurs. The plan to work collaboratively with a community of artists has been the driving force for this project. My rationale for the approach I’ve described above, is that I needed to have some distance from the rooms my animated characters would explore: they needed to be as unprepared for what sleep brings as I am. This is why I invited seven other artists to participate in the creation of the rooms my characters visit.

I am strongly influenced by cycles – the notion of departure and return, both on the level of what one might learn from each departure, as well as how things stay the same. This motif plays out in 8 Rooms as well as in my other films. I also have a fondness for using images and artifacts from real life in my animation. This juxtaposition lends an absurdity to the narrative, which is both comic and poignant. I believe we should embrace the illogical in life, and animation seems to be designed expressly for that purpose.

The dioramas used as backgrounds for this film were created by Anita and seven other visual artists: Heather Komus, Reva Stone, Suzie Smith, Barb Flemington, Shirley Brown, Seema Goel and Diana Thorneycroft.