Contrafacta

Contrafacta is a collage animation made by Toronto filmmakers Roberto Ariganello and Chris Gehman. Using images from medieval artworks, and quotations from the writings of medieval mystics and poets, Contrafacta creates a web of related images and events without a simple connective narrative. “This painstakingly crafted medievalist tale… conjure[s] a dreamland of floating royals and waltzing unicorns. Birth, death, plague and the farming of souls all rub shoulders in this episodic surrealist fable. In a dance of grace and punishment where miracles are commonplace, we follow the descent of a royal egg which hatches the changing shape of the world.” – Mike Hoolboom, Images Festival, 2000 “Every work here is characterized by a rare modesty (of means and/or of ego), but it would be wrong to equate this with a lack of ambition. To wit: Contrafacta. The horror of an incomprehensible world ruled by an unfathomable God is expressed through sublime cutout animation; medieval art moves to a creepy and funny soundtrack, inadvertently inventing a new genre: spiritual slapstick.” – Daniel Cockburn, “Cinema Naivete,” 2006