Pixar might soak up much of the oxygen in the world of animation but there’s plenty of activity at the edges of the art form. This week includes two special events that prove that to be the case. As the final event of its fall season, Pleasure Dome presents the Canadian premiere of Ponytail, the first feature-length work by Vancouver video artist and renegade animator Barry Doupé. With its angst-ridden, German-speaking characters and deliberately non-Pixar-calibre graphics, it plays like a forgotten Fassbinder movie as performed by avatars from The Sims. Its sheer weirdness can be appreciated when it screens Saturday (Nov. 29) 8pm at Cinecycle (behind 129 Spadina Ave.).
The installation and video work of Takashi Ishida is more serene in nature. The Japanese artist — who has been in Toronto developing new work and is also the subject of an exhibition at Trinity Square Video running until Dec. 19 — creates highly geometrically oriented animations inspired by the Japanese tradition of emaki (picture scroll). The effect is ruminative yet also — in the case of his 2007 video Film of the Sea, in which a cube-like interior hosts an ever-shifting drama of light, line and colour — surprisingly playful. He’s present at Cinematheque Ontario (317 Dundas W.) for a screening on Wednesday (Dec. 3) at 7pm.