Circuit Marine

Directed by Isabelle Favez as part of the Artists in residence program of the highly acclaimed Studio Folimage and coproduced by the National Film Board of Canada, Circuit Marine depicts a band of very colourful characters who think of little else but eating each other. Aboard their boat on the high seas, a food chain develops. The greedy sailors gorge on the fish they catch, the ginger cat and the parrot eye up the goldfish, and the goldfish devours flies. Everyone eats each other and the cycle goes on and on like that on the boat, which is even navigating in circles! The frenetic pace of Circuit Marine goes particularly well with Isabelle Favez's animation and style, as her cardboard-looking characters whizz round and round in harmonious chaos. The Romani-inspired music emphasises the dance-like quality of life aboard the boat. The laughs come from repetition, with continual falls accentuating the absurd cruelty of carnivorism. No one is spared, and that is ultimately the message to which this short film alludes: that we are all each other's prey!