2022 Nominees

The Komagata Maru Incident

Bonfire Originals, Historica Canada

CANADA

- Short Non-Fiction Program

This documentary uses animation and archival imagery to bring to life our history. This story is of a darker moment in Canadian history – when racist regulations were rampant in our country. Writer Paneet Singh, artist Angela Aujla and director Graeme Mathieson collaborated in bringing this story to life through Paneet's beautiful and distinct voice and Angela’s tactile and transformative art. We identified moments in the script that would best be brought to life by repurposing archival materials, and creating something new where archival was not available. We began by visualizing each scene, sketching out how it would come together. Angela de-constructed her sketches by creating separate layers of colour-treated black and white cutout archives, objects, textures and original illustrations. We scanned her IRL art, one by one, and re-composited the scenes digitally. Each of her tactile elements were then animated, bringing to life these new iterations of moments in time.