Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Short Film: X-Mess Detritus (USA, 2008)



Here's a film for the Holiday Seasons! Aurelio Voltaire Hernández, born January 25, 1967, in Havana, Cuba, is better known simply as Voltaire, the middle name he shares with the famous French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher François-Marie Arouet. The choice of using his middle name as his stage name as an obvious reference of respect to his historical namesake, who, according to the New-Jersey-raised filmmaker, comic artist and musician, "saw through the hypocrisies of humanity and commented on them through satire. In essence, he was able to educate people about the world around them by making them laugh."
Voltaire’s films do not necessarily make one laugh, but they do very much grab one's attention and make an obvious and direct statement on the human condition of the contemporary world.

In addition to his musical, artistic and filmic activities, Voltaire is also a professor at the School of Visual Arts in NYC, where he teaches stop-motion animation. He began making films as a child, influenced by the films of Ray Harryhausen. Moving to NYC at 17, a year later he got his first directorial project for MTV and created the "MTV Bosch" station identifications broadcast between music videos. He went on to do similar ID adverts for (among others) the Cartoon Network, U.S. and the Sci-Fi channel.

X-Mess Detritus is one of a series of different films be different filmmakers featured at the wonderfulll Creepy Christmas website, a site well worth visiting in and out of the Holiday Season. It is narrated by Gerard Way of the band My Chemical Romance, with music and sound by Amar Ibrahim. Cool stuff.

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