Fear(s) of the Dark/Peur(s) du noir

France, 2007, digiBeta, b&w, 85'
In French language with Slovenian subtitles.

Directed and Graphic Design by: Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti, Richard McGuire
Screenplay: Jerry Kramsky, Michel Pirus, Romain Slocombe, Blutch, Charles Burns, Pierre di Sciullo
Voices: Aure Atika, Guillaume Depardieu, Nicole Garcia, Louisa Pili, François Creton, Christian Hecq, Arthur H
Art Director: Etienne Robial
Animators: Jean-Christophe Lie, Pieter Vanluffelen, Livia Marchand, Hoel Caouissin, Lionel Kerjean, Jean-Christophe Lie, Yves Fleury-Collet, Pieter Vanluffelen, Livia Marchand, Xiaohua Zhou, Julien Dexant
Editing: Céline Kélépikis
Music: Laurent Perez del Mar, Boris Gronemberger, René Aubry, George Van Dam
Production:Valérie Schermann, Christophe Jankovic
Distribution in Slovenia:Demiurg

Spiders' legs brushing against naked skin...
Unexplained noises in the dark...
A hypodermic needle getting closer and closer...
A dead thing trapped in a bottle of formaldehyde...
A growling dog running and on the hunt...
A big empty house creaking...

A selection of notorious and talented comic artists reveals their most intimate nightmares from which all colour has been drained to vividly express the blinding whiteness and solid darkness of these shadowlands. The six intertwined tales, each drawn in a unique style, create an unprecedented, hypnotic and dreamlike animated epic where phobias, disgusts, and nightmares come to life and reveal Fear at its most naked, primordial and intense.

Film Comments
"Rusty alleyways and vaporous ghosts painted by the masters of dread. Razor-sharp images that will slice your eye and nest there forever. Thrilling, disturbing and haunting." Guillermo del Toro

"Up to now, my fear of the dark was bearable, but since I've exposed my unconscious to the nightmares of this film's extraordinary creators, mi electricity bill is bound to go up..." Philippe Mellot, BDzoom.com

"A sophisticated showcase of contemporary animation. The best short, by Mr. Burns, is a science-fiction nightmare of erotic slavery, with elements of Alien and Kafka's Metamorphosis." Stephen Holden, The New York Times

"Undoubtedly one of the biggest cinematic events of 2008." BD Sélection

Charles Burns portrays a disturbed world of dark horror and kinky science in his comic strips, the product, he admits, of over-exposure to American pop culture in his youth. "My father's a scientist who once wanted to be a cartoonist. So I was able to read comics without being told they were going to rot my mind. As a result my brain rotted..." Burns was an early and regular contributor to Art Spiegelman's RAW magazine.

Marie Caillou's utterly distinctive, faux-naif style is influenced by Japanese illustration which explains her enormous cult following in Japan. In 2003, she directed the short Marika and the Wolf.

Richard McGuire combines computer technology with hand-drawn and paper cutout animation. His work The Orange Book has won the Society of Illustrators Gold Medal. He also draws for magazines (Time Magazine, The New Yorker, Frau), television and the Internet (the award winning page). He is the author of the short film Micro-Wolf, from the omnibus Loulou et autres Loups.

Christian Hincker aka Blutch entered the comics scene in 1988 with his works Pecos Jim, Waldo's Bar and Mademoiselle Sunnymoon featured in Fluide Glacial magazine. He then joined the French comics publishing house L'association, moving to A Suivre in 1996. The master of b&w drawings published his first comic album in colour Vitesse Moderne in 2002.

Already with his early work Il signor Spartaco Lorenzo Mattotti started experimenting with the usual way of drawing comic books by focusing on the inner worlds of his characters. In 1986 the comic Fires, drawn over the period of 6 years, brought him international acclaim. He recently collaborated on the Eros omnibus directed by Wong Kar-wai, Steven Soderbergh and Michelangelo Antonioni.

Pierre di Sciullo is a comic artist and a typographer, famous for intertwining text and images manifested in various artistic expressions (from publications to art installations). His works stretch the limits of typography. He has received numerous awards for his pioneering work.