"I think SIGGRAPH 2005 was meant to prepare our bodies for space travel and, doubly, for the loss of earth’s natural environment by redefining 'nature.'  [ ... ] 

    9,  a beautiful and poignant film by Shane Acker, received top honours as Best of Show by the jury (on which our esteemed editor sat). While viewing the film, I couldn’t help but think of Tim Burton and Henry Selick’s Nightmare Before Christmas and, somewhat, the Brothers Quay, both in imagery and sensitivity.  In fact, these influences alongside John Lasseter and his PIXAR productions were spread throughout the shorts, probably largely due to the number of films screened in the festival that were student films, and secondly, because these animation artists are of the age to have seen these works as children so that these figures now replace the Disney film as early influences. Beautiful in 9 is the choreography of a kind of mime-movement of its character, who faces a Gollum-like skeleton portrayed as a stalking force of death. In contrast to Nightmare, this film is of a sombre, industrial colour palatte and reads as a futuristic dismissal of warring skeletons, textures and mechanical structures—a fabricated rebirth of wandering into a circle of light—the hero’s journey.  Its universal theme both grounds the story and differentiates it from its predecessors. It was only after returning home that I read Tim Burton had picked up the film to develop a feature. How much of the feature version will remain Acker’s will be interesting to note after he is absorbed into the machinery of bigger budget Hollywood.  That said, what might or might not happen in the evolution of 9 as a feature can not diminish the beauty of the animation of Acker’s ten-minute version."  --- Janeann Dill 

fps, Festival Watch feature article, Emru Townsend, Ed., pp 14-16.

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