FILE ANIMA+ 2017

FILE Anima+ seeks each year to present innovative animations, either for its aesthetic side, for its narrative form or for its technicality. And as a highlight of this wave of imagistic innovation, we bring for the first time to Brazil the artist and filmmaker Faiyaz Jafri.
Born and raised in a rural area in the Netherlands, Jaiyaz, descendant of Pakistanis, explores in his works the Jungian archetypes (ego, persona, shadow, animus/anima and self) in the contemporary world mixed to a line of images with a high seductive power bordering obscenity, which he labels “pop” hyper-realism. In addition, he investigates the so-called neoarchitectures of the mass communication media and globalized “pop” culture.
The artist re-signifies icons of the pop world by appropriating them, making them immaculate by using them in contexts in which their characters (mostly female) have an unnatural, polite, aseptic, cold and soulless perfection. But the strength that this aesthetic carries, floating between innocence and violence, conveys a load of such emotion that makes Faiyaz’s work sometimes frightening, romantic, and strangely human.
The artist re-signifies icons of the pop world by appropriating them, making them immaculate by using them in contexts in which their characters (mostly female) have an unnatural, polite, aseptic, cold and soulless perfection. But the strength that this aesthetic carries, floating between innocence and violence, conveys a load of such emotion that makes Faiyaz’s work sometimes frightening, romantic, and strangely human.
Faiyaz’s work is about duality: sex and violence; eroticism and innocence. For example, duality over innocence and seduction, opposites that, in their animations, are paradoxically very similar and they do not exist in absolute opposition. Nothing is pure innocence or pure evil and the artist’s work just mixes these extremes.
FILE Anima+ 2017 also features hundreds of animated short films among independent, experimental, student and large studio productions. Its partnership with the acclaimed Japanese festival Japan Media Arts Festival features two programs: “Tenacious, gracious” and “Beyond the Technology”; With several highlights from the Japanese animation. FILE Anima + also presents a partnership with the Greek festival ADAF – Athens Digital Arts Festival, with the program #PostFuture Journey, bringing animations of several artists from Eastern Europe.

Raquel Fukuda
FILE ANIMA+ Curator