REALISM — current posts — Fantasy/Animation

A school shooting is every parent’s worst nightmare. Unfortunately, this nightmare is real for many parents in the United States. According to researchers at Education Week, in 2024, there were 39 recorded school shootings resulting in injuries or death; so far in 2025, there have been 3 events relating to gun violence on school grounds in the US (“School Shootings Over Time”). The persistence of school shootings in the US and the fear and grief they cause are extremely devastating to students and affected families. Communities like Mothers Against Gun Violence, Americans for Responsible Solutions, and Sandy Hook Promise demand change for schools and gun legislation. In this blog, I will analyze the use of colour and sound in Will McCormack and Michael Govier’s animated short If Anything Happens I Love You (2020), reflecting on how these elements of style convey a harrowing outlook on school shootings

EDITORIALKaylee ErwinNovember 7, 2025AMERICA, POLITICAL, VIOLENCE, REALISM Comment

The 21 (Tod Polson, 2024)

In 2019, MORE Productions was contemplating its first animated film project. Having worked on live-action features like The Ticket (2016) with Dan Stevens and Martin Scorsese’s Silence (2016), MORE’s co-producers Mark Rodgers and Mandi Hart knew the world of live-action filmmaking well. They also knew it was not the best creative choice for the story they were seeking to tell - the story of 21 men (twenty Coptic Egyptians, one Ghanaian) kidnapped, tortured and ultimately martyred by ISIS in an infamous video published on February 15, 2015.

EDITORIALMandi HartDecember 6, 2024REALISM, STYLE, POLITICALComment

Healing Latin-American generational trauma in Encanto (2021)

Encanto (Byron Howard & Jared Bush, 2021), Disney’s 60th animated film inspired by Latin-American culture tells the story of a magical family, the family Madrigal. The narrative follows the dynamics of the Madrigal family tree across generations in the town of Encanto, ultimately spearheaded by 15-year-old Mirabel, the only member of the family without magical powers.

EDITORIALMariana Pintado ZuritaAugust 19, 2022COMPUTER-ANIMATED FILM, DISNEY, MUSICAL, LATIN AMERICA, MAGIC, REALISMComment

Childhood Reimagined: Navigating Difficult Terrain in The Breadwinner (2017)

The world that children occupy is full of secrets, and is a world not shared with adults. It is one concerned primarily with fantasy and imagination. Every child has a right to occupy that secret world; it’s part of childhood development and is an important locator of child identity as a ‘non-adult’. As Chris Jenks tells us, “the child is familiar to us and yet strange, he or she inhabits our world and yet seems to answer to another” (2020, 3). The child exists in its own distinct world and separation and agency are at the core of that world.

EDITORIALJane BatkinMarch 10, 2022GENDER, FEMINISM, CHILDREN, FANTASY, REALISMComment

Review: Luca (Enrico Casarosa, 2021)

Luca is a love letter to Italy – and it is written beautifully. In May 2016, I was on a train from La Spezia to Manarola, Italy, one of the five villages of Cinque Terre. Manarola had been on my bucket list since I saw the photo of this place, with its picture-postcard perfection, as a background on the Windows log-in screen. I remember when I got off the train and saw Manarola before me for the very first time, becoming teary at its beauty, as well as being overcome by fulfilling a long-held wish to see it for myself.

FILM REVIEWAnna ZsuboriJune 25, 2021PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS, COMPUTER-ANIMATED FILM, REALISM, PRODUCTION DESIGNComment