Jim Trainor

The presentation theme

Jim Trainor

Marianne McGinnis, Jim Trainor

Simplistic drawings portray the myths and rituals of the ancient Moche civilization as interpreted by the filmmaker from the artwork on Moche pottery, inspired by Donnan McClelland's "Sex and Death."

The Moschops

Jim Trainor

Gregory Baird, Marianne McGinnis

Set 247 million years ago in what is now South Africa, The Moschops (2000) is a faux nature documentary focused on a genus long extinct. Trainor describes his animated film as being "about the origin of compassion in the animal kingdom."

The Bats

Jim Trainor

Jim Trainor, Marianne McGinnis

A bat tells his story. He lives near a Mayan temple in a cave with bats of nine different pitches. His mother cares for him, teaching him to echo for worms. But all is not idyllic: his brother dies learning to fly; not everyone gets along (babies can be attacked by bats of other pitches). After three years, his sexual urge materializes, and he mates with many females. God speaks to him from time to time, giving solace and advice. Drinking water, finding worms, and enjoying sex bring happiness. But extinction may loom for his species, and regardless of his wish to live forever, death does await. - Written by jhailey

The Ordovicians

Lisa Barcy, Jim Trainor

Like an antiquated nature documentary from Mars, The Ordovicians fills the screen with weirdly twitching objects.

The Fetishist

Jim Trainor

“Presents scenes from the life of William Heirens, dubbed the “Lipstick Killer” .. Trainor imagines Heirens’s private moments through a series of dreamlike vignettes. Taking cues from a study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 1946, Trainor depicts the juvenile Heirens’s pathological obsessions and behavioral abnormalities—his penchant for stealing women’s underwear, his compulsion to break into apartments and defecate in them .. “I got interested in a process of rote, uncritical tracing, where my drawings would get bent out of shape without much attempt to control them...I like Sharpie pens because the thick line, though unforgiving, goes down quickly; I can draw lots of pictures quickly. I stopped being concerned about their awkwardness.” These strategies, he explained, allowed the violent disturbances of Heirens’s psyche to be articulated through trembling visual designs, a fitting marriage of style and subject." - Light Industry

The Pink Egg

Jim Trainor

Julia Zinn, Lori Felker

Luis Buñuel’s observation – “You can find all of Shakespeare and de Sade in the lives of insects” – was the inspiration for this experimental horror movie, in which human actors wordlessly enact the life-cycles of wasps and bees. Its purpose is to depict with emotion, humor and unnerving specificity an alternative society that really exists and has nothing to do with human beings. A highly stylized depiction of nature in all her deceitful glory.

Harmony

Jim Trainor

Alex Jovanovich, Paula Wray

A male God bestows upon animals the gift of self-awareness, which they promptly use to express guilt for their behavior. This moral breakthrough is somewhat undermined by the appearance of humans, whose invention of magical belief systems degrades the whole of Nature.

The Magic Kingdom

Jim Trainor

In the blue-green light of the tropical rainforest, among the creeks and boulders and fallen trees, humankind's closest relatives drift in and out of meditative states. Also features a hippo and a tapir.

Extra Terrestrial

Ben Russell, Rhyne Piggott

Ethan Ebel, Sharon Ambielli

“A deadpan video art reworking of 1982's highest-grossing movie, EXTRA TERRESTRIAL peels away layers of sentimental narrative goo from its source, exposing a hard core of anxiety, loneliness and dread. Shifting the focus from character to interior, Ben Russell and Rhyne Piggott mine the landscape of a beige-carpeted ranch style house for new insights into the architecture of suburban alienation.” - Anne Reecer, Cinematexas

Anxious Animation

Lewis Klahr, Syd Garon

This ain’t no Pixar. This is ain’t no Disney. This ain’t no foolin’ around. ANXIOUS ANIMATION presents six contemporary film artists who take us into surreal worlds of delirium and paranoia… The reigning proponent of cut-and-paste, LEWIS KLAHR nourishes intensely private visions on the compost heap of collective fantasy through old magazines, comic books, and cocktail iconography.Complex, full of charm, and pervaded by themes of loss, JANIE GEISER simultaneously creates and deconstructs fantasies through doll-like figurines, cut-outs, and found objects in her cryptic narratives.JIM TRAINOR’s handmade animations explore the inner lives of animals that appear strangely self-aware even as they instinctually copulate, feed, fight, kill and die.The Bay Area collective of RODNEY ASCHER, SYD GARON, and ERIC HENRY conjure diabolical visions with digital savvy, accompanied by the manic music of Buckethead and DJ Q-Bert.