WSFF Preview: Midnight Mania Freaky

WSFF runs two Mania programs, both of which are essential viewing. Creepy gets the horror flicks, the general weirdness goes here. This year’s Freaky program spreads fourteen shorts over roughly an hour and a half. Of the fourteen nine are animated, three are live action fiction and one is a live action documentary about an odd collision of extreme fighting, punk rock and freak shows in France. The entire program is very, very strong but here are my favorites:

Robota. One of the longer entries in the program Robota is a sci-fi picture set in some sort of Bladerunner inspired future city populated with robots involved in underground robotic cock fighting. It’s a stop motion animated piece with absolutely everything – the environments, the characters, the backgrounds – built and animated with LEGO. Very cool.

The Adventures of Big Jeff. Big Jeff, as the title suggests, is a big man. A big Australian man. A big Australian man stark naked but for his bush vest, Tilley hat and roller skates. He’s animated and anatomically correct. Big Jeff has decided to impart his wisdom to the children of the world and is using the letters of the alphabet to teach useful bits of information about the outback. It’s Sesame Street gone horribly wrong.