ZAP Book Animation
My current project is a series of films produced on journeys using a purist straight-ahead animation technique following an evolving creative manifesto
The film began with a gift from a friend—an A5 , 180pp Zap Book—while I was recovering from burnout after completing my doctorate in philosophy in August 2024
Untitled 01 : Running Away
Due to Festival distribution only an extract can be shown. If you would like to see the whole film contact me and I can provide access to a preview.
Synopsis
A contemplative journey unfolds through hand-drawn sketches filmed on the windows of moving trains and buses, embracing a purist manifesto for straight-ahead animation. Discarding planning, storyboards, light boxes, and corrections for the raw energy of the drawn line, the film blends frantic motion with calm reflection, capturing shifting landscapes both internal and external.
Production
- Animator/ Director : Becalelis Brodskis
- Music: ALgy Behrens
- Zap Books provided by Ben Hardy
- DCP testing Camille Brooks
- With thanks to the many friends who encouraged me to continue ( you know who you are)
Untitled 03: Matter and Memory of a Train Journey.
Aspects of Untitled 01: Running Away, combined with the research of my PhD thesis provided the inspiration for developing my next film. This film in development will follow a train journey across Europe and North Africa—from Lithuania where my grandfather was born to Morocco where my father was born, passing through France and Spain where i lived as a child. The film will explore two interwoven themes:
- Theories of Perception, Memory, and Matter
Drawing on the ideas of the French philosopher Henri Bergson, particularly his seminal work Matter and Memory, the film will explore perception is informed by a relationshiop between matter, memory and action. The landscapes I travel through on this journey—trains, stations, cities—will serve as both matter, physical locations and relating to memories carried by myself and fellow travlers. Metaphors for the inner journey of processing how the external world relating to our inner being shapes our understanding of self and identity. - The Story of Diaspora
The film will also be a personal exploration of my family’s diaspora . My Jewish grandfather was born in Lithuania and escaped pogroms moving to france , then Nazis in France finding refuge in Morocco, where my father was born. I was born in London and distant from my Jewish heratage. This journey is a literal and emotional retracing of the steps that led to the displacement and transformation that comes with migration, the search for belonging, and the lasting impact of these experiences on subsequent generations.
Using the same straight-ahead animation technique, this film will blend both the rawness of the Untitled 01: Running Away with a planned narrative structure that guides rather than leads the films production. The animation will remain unpolished and spontaneous, whilst connecting the landscapes, memories, and emotional evolution that unfolds throughout the journey. The train itself will serve as a powerful metaphor for both travel and transformation.
This journey across Europe and North Africa will not only be a physical passage but also a meditation on identity, memory, and how the places we inhabit shape our perception of the world and ourselves. Through animation, I hope to capture the interplay between the materiality of these places—the trains, stations, and cities—and the intangible nature of memory, perception, and personal history.
in some ways it relates to a rd movie I made in 2007, The Letters Unwritten selected by the critically acclaimed Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen considered the oldest short film festival in the world and is one of the largest international platforms for the short form