Combining the various techniques of cut-outs, drawings, and model animation, Sullivan’s very first animated feature, Consuming Spirits, tells the story of the mythological reality of the suburbs in America. This film became a smash-hit in theaters in the US and was selected as one of the “100 Best Animated Films.” Here in Japan, the film was selectively shown in various cities and was accepted enthusiastically.

SYNOPSYS

It took experimental filmmaker Chris Sullivan nearly 15 years to complete Consuming Spirits, a meticulously crafted film shot frame by frame with collage, cutout, pencil drawing, and stop-motion animation. The oddly drawn characters live in Gardener’s Corners, a dark and dysfunctional Appalachian town. Sullivan’s three protagonists—Gentian Violet, a bus-driving journalist; Earl Gray, a radio talk-show host; and Victor Blue, a meek newspaperman—share dark secrets from their pasts as well as their daily lives. A feature length animated psychological drama, created frame by frame and shot on 16mm.

DIRECTOR

Chris Sullivan

Chris Sullivan was born and raised in the wooded hills of Pittsburgh Pa. along with 10 siblings. Making animated films for 35 years. His first animated feature “Consuming Spirits” had its theatrical debut at New York’s Film Forum for a two week run in December of 2012. Then Cinefamily in LA, Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago, “Consuming Spirits” received funding from The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation Film and Video Fellowship. Just as “Consuming Spirits” is finally finished, Chris received a Creative Capital Grant to start work on another experimental feature “The Orbit of Minor Satellites.”
http://creative-capital.org/projects/view/705

Chris lives in Chicago, teaches at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago, and is a father to Carmen and Silvia Abelson.

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