Two One Two

Shira
Avni

Shira Avni is an award-winning filmmaker and Associate Professor of Film Animation at Concordia University in Montreal. Avni's collaborative, community-based animated films, in partnership with the National Film Board of Canada, have garnered over 30 grants and awards, including the prestigious DOK Leipzig Golden Dove and the NHK Japan Prize, and have screened in over 100 festivals worldwide. She holds an MFA in Film/Video/New Media from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2003). She is the proud recipient of a 2020 Distinguished Teaching Award at Concordia, where she teaches under camera animation, animated documentary, advanced animation filmmaking, and other courses. Her current research weaves documentary, animation, and personal memoir to address questions of neurodiversity, identity, social justice, motherhood, and interdependence through luminous clay-on-glass animation, back-lit to create the shimmering effect of stained glass in motion. Filmography: Petra’s Poem, 2012, National Film Board of Canada, 4min. https://www.nfb.ca/film/petras_poem/ 3D stereoscopic video/animation. Directed and animated by Shira Avni. Premiered at HotDocs Documentary Film Festival in May 2012. Screened in 19 festivals in Australia, Canada, Europe, India, Korea, USA, and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Tying Your Own Shoes, 2009, National Film Board of Canada. 16min11. https://www.nfb.ca/film/tying_your_own_shoes/ Directed, written, and animated by Shira Avni. Official submission by the National Film Board of Canada to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for 2010 Oscar consideration, Short Documentary category. Winner of 8 awards including the DOK Leipzig Golden Dove for Best Short Documentary Film and the NHK Japan Prize, and nominated for the BaKaForum SRG SSR idée Suisse Prize. John and Michael, 2005, National Film Board of Canada. 10min28, Clay-on-glass animation. https://www.nfb.ca/film/john_and_michael/ Written, directed, and animated by Shira Avni. Winner of 18 international awards, grants, and nominations, including the DOXA Short Documentary Award, the Worldfest Silver Remi Award, and a Banff International Television Award nomination. Screened in over 80 Film Festivals worldwide.

An experimental animated documentary love letter to motherhood, parenting on the spectrum, and two‐headed monsters everywhere.

This film screens as part of the programAn Evening with Animations 1.