Oscar-nominated Canadian animator's latest heading to Cannes

A new short film from Winnipeg animator Cordell Barker, featuring music by Montreal composer Benoît Charest, is heading for a world premiere screening at the Cannes Film Festival.

The National Film Board announced Friday that Barker's colourful, nine-minute animated comedy Runaway will screen in Cannes as part of the International Critics' Week section. Running May 14-22, International Critics' Week focuses on short films as well as feature-length works by debut or second-time filmmakers.

Barker sent in what he called a "really hideous rough assembly" for consideration several weeks ago and expressed shock that his film was chosen.

"My perception was Cannes was more of the arty, introspective kind of work and that's just not me," Barker said in an interview on Friday. 

"And then I just heard this morning that not only was it accepted, it was the only one accepted, the only Canadian thing — it just shocked me."

Runaway follows a "driverless" train as it thunders over a bumpy track, crowded with oblivious passengers forced into confrontation when the train breaks down.

"It has to do with excess and people sleepwalking through their own sort of destruction," the 52-year-old animator said. 

"It has to do with the greed of people at the top and everyone else just sort of floating along for the ride just oblivious to all the things that are going on around them."

Runaway will screen on May 15 in the competition shorts category, which includes animated and live action films from around the globe. It will also travel to the International Animation Film Festival in Annecy, France, in June.

Barker — perhaps best known for his widely acclaimed 1988 cartoon The Cat Came Back and 2003's Strange Invaders, both award-winners and Oscar-nominees — completed Runaway at the NFB Prairie Centre in Winnipeg. According to the NFB, it cost $457,000 to produce and is the lone Canadian pick at Cannes this year.

Charest, fresh off creating the soundtrack to Denis Villeneuve's controversial film Polytechnique, is best known for creating the distinctive music in the Oscar-winning film The Triplets of Belleville.

The NFB and Canadian animators have a long, storied history at Cannes. The government-supported film funding agency and producer has won 20 awards at the venerable French festival, including a Palme d'Or in 1955 for Norman McLaren's Blinkity Blank.

The NFB helps promote short films each year at the festival and also established the annual Norman McLaren Award for short film in 2005. Cannes officials bestowed a medal on the NFB at a ceremony in March to honour the board's 70th anniversary.