| Hunger/La Faim | |
|---|---|
 English opening title
| |
| Directed by | Peter Foldes |
| Music by | Pierre F. Brault |
| Distributed by | National Film Board of Canada |
Running time |
11 minutes and 12 seconds |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | None |
| Budget | $38,893 |
Hunger/La Faim is a 1973 animated short film produced by the National Film Board of Canada. It was directed by Peter Foldes and is one of the first computer animation films. The story, told without words, is a morality tale about greed and gluttony in contemporary society.
National Research Council
Peter Foldes worked in collaboration with the National Research Council's Division of Radio and Electrical Engineering's Data Systems Group, who decided to develop a computer animation application in 1969. NRC scientist Nestor Burtnyk had heard an animator from Disney explain the traditional animation process, where a head animator draws the key cels and assistants draw the fill in pictures. The work of the artist's assistant seemed to Burtnyk to be the ideal demonstration vehicle for computer animation and within a year he programmed a "key frame animation" package to create animated sequences from key frames. The NFB in Montreal was contacted so that artists could experiment with computer animation. Foldes made a 1971 experimental film involving freehand drawings called Metadata. This was followed by Hunger, which took him and his NRC partners a year and a half to make. It cost $38,893 (equivalent to $233,358 in 2021) to create.
Awards
- Cannes Film Festival, Cannes: Special Jury Award - Short Films, 1974
- Edinburgh International Film Festival, Edinburgh: Certificate of Merit, Interfilm Jury, 1974
- Chicago International Film Festival, Chicago: Silver Hugo, 1974
- Chicago International Film Festival, Chicago: Norman McLaren Award, 1974
- International Week of Cinema in Colour, Barcelona: Gold Medal, 1974
- International Week of Cinema, Nairobi: Gold Impala for Best Short Film, 1974
- Yorkton Film Festival, Yorkton: Golden Sheaf Award for Best Animation, 1975
- International Animation Film Festival, New York: Golden Praxinoscope, 1975
- World Festival of Animated Film, Varna, Bulgaria: Special Award, Short and Medium Length Films, 1975
- Melbourne Film Festival, Melbourne: Diploma of Merit, 1975
- American Film and Video Festival, New York: Blue Ribbon, International Affairs, 1975
- Philadelphia International Festival of Short Films, Philadelphia: Award for Exceptional Merit, 1975
- 28th British Academy Film Awards, London: BAFTA Award for Best Short Animation, 1975
- 47th Academy Awards, Los Angeles: Nominee: Best Animated Short Film, 1975
Works cited
- Evans, Gary (1991). In the National Interest: A Chronicle of the National Film Board of Canada from 1949 to 1989. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0802027849.