Join us to celebrate some of the best in hand-drawn Canadian animation with a double feature of two fantastic offerings from 2016, including Robert Valley‘s Oscar-nominated PEAR CIDER AND CIGARETTES (which enjoyed its theatrical premiere at the Rio earlier this year) and Nick DiLiberto‘s astonishing NOVA SEED (which screened as part of the Rio Grind Film Festival this past November). Vancouver’s own director Robert Valley will be on-hand to introduce PEAR CIDER AND CIGARETTES, and to take questions following the film.

Tuesday, March 21

Doors 6:00 pm
NOVA SEED 6:30 pm
(Short Break)
PEAR CIDER & CIGARETTES 7:30 pm

Advance tickets $10 | $12 at the door

*Must be 19+ w/ID for entry and bar service. Groupons and passes OK! Please redeem at the door

NOVA SEED is a gorgeous, spirited achievement of mind-bendingly original sci-fi fantasy, drawing comparison to the work of greats from Ralph Bakshi to Hayao Miyazaki. This remarkably painstaking work of entirely hand-drawn 2D animation took over four years to craft, and was created by a single human: Canadian independent creator, writer, director and producer Nick DiLiberto, in association with Toronto’s House of Cool.

Years in the making, this Action packed adventure will keep you on the edge of your seat asking for more. With characters and a world that ignite the imagination unlike anything before. Fans of traditional 2D animation are in for a treat, as NOVA SEED has been entirely hand drawn frame by frame and continues to push the envelope in its approach and techniques.

"Beneath the surface decay of a toxic, dying world lives the Mad Doctor Mindskull. He has created the ultimate weapon, using the planet’s own power to destroy it. Can mankind unite to find a way to stop this Evil before time runs out? The only answer lies within… The Nova Seed."

“NOVA SEED is entirely animated by Nick DiLiberto – who spent 4 years of his life, hand drawing, coloring and shading every frame of the film. 60,000 or so. It’s an hour and four minutes, putting it at the runtime of many old movies from the classic era – and due to the amazing sense of motion, color, vivid originality and awesome post-apocalyptic trippy coolness. This animated film that feels utterly Canadian – sometimes even stylistically hinting at the great Sally Cruikshank’s QUASI AT THE QUACKADERO. You will want MINDSKULL toys. Lion Man I love. The Nova Seed… so awesome. This thing started and ended and the mind and body expansion that takes place inbetween requires no drugs, no inebriation. It is a waking vision of a far crazier and awesome universe that poured out of Nick DiLeberto’s imagination incrementally, but consecutively fan-fucking-tastic!” (Ain’t It Cool News)

“With an artistic style that beckons back to the worlds created in Heavy Metal from 1981 and character designs from, say, 1968’s Yellow Submarine and whiffs of Japanese anime, it is a wildly imaginative world full of creatures both familiar and alien. Nova Seed is also an ambitious adventure film, with a terrific air combat sequence as its centerpiece, the hour is chock full of action, often with sound effects supplied by DiLiberto, like the ‘ping’ of a sword sticking in stone or the gatling gun spitting fire from NAC’s escape ship. It all culminates with the fight against a great creature of Ghibli-esque grandeur and fearsome size.” (Screen Anarchy)

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PEAR CIDER AND CIGARETTES: “Rob Valley has built his reputation as a much-wanted hired-gun on other people’s projects, from the Gorillaz music videos to the ‘Tron: Uprising’ series, but his latest short represents a new career phase as a film director. Valley originally self-published Pear Cider and Cigarettes as a multi-volume graphic novel, but the plan was always to end up with an animated film, he told Cartoon Brew. “The film isn’t just an adaptation from the book, but I wanted to take it one step further an actually animate the panels straight from the comic,” Valley said. “This involved some planning up front.”

With twenty years of industry experience, dating back to a breakout stint on the MTV classic Aeon Flux, Valley brings an electrifying visual style to his new film that belies its tiny crew. And by tiny, we’re talking, like, one person. Valley single-handedly produced all of the film’s artwork and animation by himself over the course of the last half-decade.

The main character in Pear Cider and Cigarettes is Valley’s childhood friend, Techno Stypes, a hard-living daredevil whose self-destructive spiral eventually leaves him lying in a Chinese hospital in desperate need of a liver transplant. Valley’s own life intertwines with Stypes’ (not his real name, by the way) in a crazy true story that charges animated autobiography into gritty new territory.” [Cartoon Brew.com]

Official Site www.pearciderandcigarettes.com