Winner > Best Animated Film
Synopsis
Boys Clap, Girls Dance is a 10-minute long animated short about, Girl, a pre-teen who exists in an artificially constructed world. She’s aware that something is changing but isn’t sure how much of it is coming from within her or from the circumstances created for her. Will this external power always exist to influence her actions and desires? Is she living for herself or for others? We follow Girl as she moves throughout her day, navigating the obstacles, people, and places, that are always in constant flux and that she may learn, ultimately dictating what she knows about her life and doesn’t.
Director > Dena Springer
Writer > Dena Springer, Bec Hac, Joshua David Blum
Producer > Dena Springer, Bec Hac, Joshua David Blum
Director Biography
Dena Springer
Dena Springer is a bi-racial Asian-American animator & illustrator living in Chicago. Her work at once magnifies and reduces behaviors within groups, examining movements (both literal and figurative), and the divergent response to collective ideological structures between Eastern and Western perspectives. She uses vintage educational videos, antiquated instruction manuals, and old illustrations from children’s books to respond to and challenge cultural definitions of role, gender, and identity. By borrowing from the rich animation tradition of the early 20th Century, she invites the viewer onto the drawing board with her in an effort to scramble the distance between who we are collectively, and individually, and what culture dictates to us about both.
Her animated films have been screened at festivals such as GLAS Animation Festival, Ottawa International Animation Festival, & San Diego Underground Film Festival.
