Norman McLaren Shorts

As a boy Norman McLaren loved to listen to music with his eyes closed, visualising the colours and patterns which would accompany each sound. His subsequent career as a filmmaker - from early experiments at Glasgow School of Art through commissions from the GPO Film Unit to his unique position at the National Board of Film in Canada - was spent doggedly pursuing these daydreams. McLaren is the closest thing this festival has to a patron saint, and this afternoon’s selection of shorts gives some idea of his glorious range and capacity for invention. There’s also a rare outing for 1936 art-school anti-war piece

Hell Unlimited with a newly-commissioned score by Louis Robinson of the Destroyers, and

McLaren’s Negatives (dir: Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre, Canada 2006, 10 mins), a short documentary which uses the animator’s words and techniques to fashion a delightful introduction to his world.