Official Selection

Canada 2021
Duration: 18:02
Directed by: Jason Zumpano
Animation: Jimi Pantalon
Technique: 2D animation
Music: Jason Zumpano
Dialogue language: no dialogue

Springboarding off original illustrations by the internationally renowned artist Jason McLean, What You Are Out Here For experiments with experimental film-making itself, putting McLean's art for the first time into motion. The open-ended and coming of age beginnings of a day tripper take us from ladders to subways, from subways into tunnels of abstract expressionism, and finally into a series of far flung locales in outer realms. Drawing upon original music by composer Jason Zumpano, New-York based Canadian artist Jason McLean has created surreal characters and tableaus, set into rotoscope-like motion by New York artist Jimi Pantalon. Guided by a narrative composed by Jason Zumpano, who's also taken on the role of director, the overall effect of this ensemble of idiosyncratic creators is a one of a kind animation lying somewhere between the liminal and subliminal. What You Are Out Here For is a meditative quest that mounts a total sensorium of unmediated trippiness.

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