Another contender appears in time for this year’s awards season: Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming, a 2016 Canadian animated feature film written and directed by Ann Marie Fleming – based on her graphic novel. Funding for the film was raised through an Indiegogo campaign. The film was co-produced by Fleming’s Stickgirl Productions, Sandra Oh and the National Film Board of Canada. It opens for an Oscar-qualifying engagement in Los Angeles on September 29th. Here’s the trailer:

Guest Director-Animators

Rosie’s poem – Janet Perlman
History of Iran – Sadaf Amini
Hafiz history – Bahram Javaheri
Bani Adaam – Dominique Doktor, Shira Avni (consultant)
Taylor Mali’s poem – Elissa Chee
Dietmar’s Poem – Michael Mann
Hafiz poem – Jody Kramer
Cow poem – Kunal Sen
Masnevi – Louise Johnson
Rumi poem – Lillian Chan

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS:

It’s about love (it’s always about love…) – love of family, poetry, history, culture. Here’s the story: Rosie Ming, a young Canadian poet, is invited to perform at a Poetry Festival in Shiraz, Iran, but she’d rather be in Paris. She lives at home with her over-protective Chinese grandparents and has never been anywhere by herself. Once in Iran, she finds herself in the company of poets and Persians, all who tell her stories that force her to confront her past; the Iranian father she assumed abandoned her and the nature of Poetry itself. It’s about building bridges between cultural and generational divides. It’s about being curious. Staying open. And finding your own voice through the magic of poetry.

Rosie goes on an unwitting journey of forgiveness, reconciliation, and perhaps above all, understanding, through learning about her father’s past, her own cultural identity, and her responsibility to it.
This film is our small effort to try and add a little more peace, love and understanding to our increasingly complex and conflicted world through art, poetry, history and culture.

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Jerry Beck

Writer, cartoon producer and author of more than 15 books on animation history. A former studio exec with Nickelodeon and Disney; currently on the faculty at both CalArts in Valencia and Woodbury University in Burbank, California.

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