Theodore Ushev

Winter. Somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg. Negin and Nazgol find a sum of money frozen deep within the sidewalk ice and try to find a way to get it out. Massoud leads a group of befuddled tourists upon an increasingly-strange walking tour of Winnipeg historic sites. Matthew leaves his job at the Québec government and embarks upon a mysterious journey to visit his estranged mother.

Partly figurative, partly abstract, Drux Flux is an animation film of fast-flowing images showing modern people crushed by industry. Inspired by One-Dimensional Man by the philosopher Herbert Marcus…

With the shade around her waist, she dreams on her balcony. Under the gypsy moon, all things are watching her, and she cannot see them. A surrealist journey through colors and shapes inspired by the poem Romance Sonambulo by Federico Garcia Lorca. Visual poetry in the rhythm of fantastic dreams and passionate nights.

In a dystopian future, a nation of bio-titans has been created and the female sex and procreation have become obsolete. As the Earth turns toxic, the bio-titans are eager to colonise the cosmos on board a colossal spaceship, taking with them only one female body kept barely alive as a reminder of the troubled past. But everything changes when the immortal calligrapher Krypton, tasked with creating an indestructible copy of the entire written heritage of his kin, sees a forbidden book turn into a feisty girl, Gargara.

Director Theodore Ushev uses his own blood to animate struggles with injustice in the world.

This animated short by Theodore Ushev is like a whirlwind tour of Russian constructivist art and is filled with visual references to artists of the era, including Vertov, Stenberg, Rodchenko, Lissitsky and Popova.

Partly figurative, partly abstract, Drux Flux is an animation film of fast-flowing images showing modern people crushed by industry. Inspired by One-Dimensional Man by the philosopher Herbert Marcus…

With the shade around her waist, she dreams on her balcony. Under the gypsy moon, all things are watching her, and she cannot see them. A surrealist journey through colors and shapes inspired by the poem Romance Sonambulo by Federico Garcia Lorca. Visual poetry in the rhythm of fantastic dreams and passionate nights.

With the shade around her waist, she dreams on her balcony. Under the gypsy moon, all things are watching her, and she cannot see them. A surrealist journey through colors and shapes inspired by the poem Romance Sonambulo by Federico Garcia Lorca. Visual poetry in the rhythm of fantastic dreams and passionate nights.

With the shade around her waist, she dreams on her balcony. Under the gypsy moon, all things are watching her, and she cannot see them. A surrealist journey through colors and shapes inspired by the poem Romance Sonambulo by Federico Garcia Lorca. Visual poetry in the rhythm of fantastic dreams and passionate nights.

In a dystopian future, a nation of bio-titans has been created and the female sex and procreation have become obsolete. As the Earth turns toxic, the bio-titans are eager to colonise the cosmos on board a colossal spaceship, taking with them only one female body kept barely alive as a reminder of the troubled past. But everything changes when the immortal calligrapher Krypton, tasked with creating an indestructible copy of the entire written heritage of his kin, sees a forbidden book turn into a feisty girl, Gargara.

In a dystopian future, a nation of bio-titans has been created and the female sex and procreation have become obsolete. As the Earth turns toxic, the bio-titans are eager to colonise the cosmos on board a colossal spaceship, taking with them only one female body kept barely alive as a reminder of the troubled past. But everything changes when the immortal calligrapher Krypton, tasked with creating an indestructible copy of the entire written heritage of his kin, sees a forbidden book turn into a feisty girl, Gargara.

Director Theodore Ushev uses his own blood to animate struggles with injustice in the world.

Director Theodore Ushev uses his own blood to animate struggles with injustice in the world.

This animated short by Theodore Ushev is like a whirlwind tour of Russian constructivist art and is filled with visual references to artists of the era, including Vertov, Stenberg, Rodchenko, Lissitsky and Popova.

A descent into the maelstrom of anguish that tormented Arthur Lipsett, a famed Canadian experimental filmmaker who died at 49. A diary transmuted into a clash of images and sounds charting a prodigious frenzy of creation, a tableau depicting an artist’s dizzying descent into depression and madness: with LIPSETT DIARIES, Theodore Ushev renews his filmmaking aesthetic and explores what happens when genius is on a first-name basis with madness.

NEF Animation (nefanimation.fr) and Fontevraud Abbey are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Fontevraud International Writing Residency for Animated Film in October 2017. A book and DVD set is being released for the occasion, featuring fifteen animated short films written during residencies at Fontevraud Abbey. Fifteen films, fifteen perspectives, fifteen worlds, presented in a video medley lasting a few minutes.

Tracks an unknown man’s life as he sifts through memories of his youth in Bulgaria through to his increasingly rootless and melancholic adulthood in Canada.

Tracks an unknown man’s life as he sifts through memories of his youth in Bulgaria through to his increasingly rootless and melancholic adulthood in Canada.

A woman writes a letter that will be read by a man in prison. A letter full of love, worry, compassion, suffering and hope. Freedom for Jafar Panahi, and all imprisoned Iranian filmmakers.

When Academy Award®–winning animator and painter Joan Gratz asked eleven filmmakers if they would contribute to an omnibus film, she wasn’t sure what to expect—after prompting them to make a “one-minute memoir,” she let them figure out the rest. The One-Minute Memoir is the exuberant result: eleven stories ranging from the heartfelt to the absurd, all reflective of each director’s personal style.

Theodore Ushev’s acclaimed 20th century trilogy concludes with this brilliant fusion of 3D and Russian constructivist-styled animation. Recycling elements of surrealism and cubism, this animated short by Theodore Ushev focuses on the relationship between art and war. Propelled by the exalting “invasion” theme from Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony (No. 7), the film presents imagery of combat fronts and massacres, leading us from Dresden to Guernica, from the Spanish Civil War to Star Wars. It is at once a symphony that serves the war machine, that stirs the masses, and art that mourns the dead, voices its outrage and calls for peace.

Theodore Ushev’s acclaimed 20th century trilogy concludes with this brilliant fusion of 3D and Russian constructivist-styled animation. Recycling elements of surrealism and cubism, this animated short by Theodore Ushev focuses on the relationship between art and war. Propelled by the exalting “invasion” theme from Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony (No. 7), the film presents imagery of combat fronts and massacres, leading us from Dresden to Guernica, from the Spanish Civil War to Star Wars. It is at once a symphony that serves the war machine, that stirs the masses, and art that mourns the dead, voices its outrage and calls for peace.

Three books: a film festival catalogue, a dictionary, the Bible. Three works whose materiality has become obsolete by the digital dematerialization. A commentary on the fragility of culture.

An old man is chasing a wolf pack. A little wolf survives, but eventually will return. Who will win - the wolf or the man?

An old man is chasing a wolf pack. A little wolf survives, but eventually will return. Who will win - the wolf or the man?

From the NFB: He is a young man; an optimist drawn to dark music and the themes of death and suffering. Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin has gained a reputation for his dedication, musicality and charisma. Combining documentary and animation, this short film captures his energy and passion, both in performance and in conversation.

From the NFB: He is a young man; an optimist drawn to dark music and the themes of death and suffering. Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin has gained a reputation for his dedication, musicality and charisma. Combining documentary and animation, this short film captures his energy and passion, both in performance and in conversation.

When Frank’s car breaks down in a bleak winter landscape, a mechanic named Barry comes to his aid. Hoping to repair the car, the two men take it into a labyrinthine underground parking garage governed by strange rules, where other unfortunate souls seem trapped.

An interpretation of French Cancan by Renoir.

From the moment she was born, Vaysha was a very special girl. With her left eye she can only see into the past, and with her right she can only see the future.

From the moment she was born, Vaysha was a very special girl. With her left eye she can only see into the past, and with her right she can only see the future.

A short animation edited from photos of disposed COVID-19 pandemic gloves and masks.

This animated short by Theodore Ushev combines warmth, humour and magic in a story about a young girl who misses her grandmother. When Lili finds a tzaritza (magic shell) along the seashore, she hatches a plan to bring her Grandma from Bulgaria to Montreal to make her father happy.

This animated short by Theodore Ushev combines warmth, humour and magic in a story about a young girl who misses her grandmother. When Lili finds a tzaritza (magic shell) along the seashore, she hatches a plan to bring her Grandma from Bulgaria to Montreal to make her father happy.

A collection of the animated short films nominated for the 2017 Academy Awards. 1. Blind Vaysha ("Vaysha l'aveugle", Canada, 8') 2. Borrowed Time (US, 7') 3. Pear Cider and Cigarettes (Canada/UK, 35') 4. Pearl (US, 6') 5. Piper (US, 6')

This metaphorical surrealist tale is an allusion. NIGHTINGALES IN DECEMBER is a trip into the memories, and the fields of the current realities. What if the Nightingales were working, instead of singing and going south? Is the innocence the only savior of birdsongs? There are no Nightingales in December... What is left, is only the history of our beginning, and our end.

This metaphorical surrealist tale is an allusion. NIGHTINGALES IN DECEMBER is a trip into the memories, and the fields of the current realities. What if the Nightingales were working, instead of singing and going south? Is the innocence the only savior of birdsongs? There are no Nightingales in December... What is left, is only the history of our beginning, and our end.

8 minutes and 19 seconds – that’s all the time we have until the news about the death of the sun reaches us. That's what it takes for the light to travel from there to here. And then the darkness comes… But the theme of this Apocalypse is not necessarily going to be expressed through a global cataclysm, horsemen of the apocalypse, angels of death, fire and destruction. It will rather be shown as something very personal, intimate and almost silent.

For his entire life, a man has waited outside a closed door. What lies behind? The truth he seeks or another door?

Hot wax painting on a Barcelona directory; a palimpsest reflecting the violence and madness of the riots that shocked Spain in October 2019.

Hot wax painting on a Barcelona directory; a palimpsest reflecting the violence and madness of the riots that shocked Spain in October 2019.

Ushev recomposes and triturates with great aesthetic vigor and panache Eisenstein's The Old and the New, giving this title a new historical dimension, the Old becoming the USSR and the New Putin's Russia.

No synopsis available yet.

Made with the filmmaker’s blood, a testament to the ideals that we fight and die for.

To the sound of a ramshackle brass band, a world slides towards ruin, carrying with it houses, birds, idols, balloons and whatever is left of reason. Theodore Ushev's Vertical combines expressionistic graphics with a scathing black humour and sense of the absurd.