Animation Night in Canada: Jeff Chiba Stearns on Marv Newland's "Black Hula"

We're counting down the days to National Canadian Film Day on April 20 with Movie Night in Canada and for this installation, we take a trippy trip into the world of animation.

Local animation, to be more specific.

This time around, our guide is local filmmaker Jeff Chiba Stearns.

Stearns is known for his animated shorts, such as "Yellow Sticky Notes", as well as his documentary One Big Hapa Family. Both works explore his identity, being Japanese Canadian and hapa (mixed racial identity).

Stearns' pick for a little known Canadian film is Marv Newland's 1988 animated short film "Black Hula", in which colonizers threaten to seduce and destroy foreign lands. (Newland is perhaps best known for his 1969 animated short "Bambi Meets Godzilla".)

Here's what Stearns had to say about why he chose it:

When I was in high school, my family lived on an orchard in Kelowna and we had one of those huge satellite dishes. Anyways, at the time, I got to watch channels that other kids in Canada didn't get to watch like MTV and Nickelodeon. MTV in the '90s really supported independent animation and there was show called Liquid Television. It was a half hour filled with crazy and strange indie animated short films. That show had a lasting effect on my decision to become an independent animator.

Well, I remember seeing Marv Newland's film "Black Hula" on Liquid Television and I never could shake off what I had watched. Marv's pulsating character design and the slow paced Hawaiian music...it was truly bizarre. Plus, it was the kind of film that could really excite a 16-year-old punk rock kid from Kelowna, who was full of angst and ready to rebel against "the Man" and big corporations.

The film always stuck with me and especially all the work Marv was producing out of his legendary Vancouver animation studio, International Rocketship in the '80s and '90s. He really supported other animators who worked at his studio to make films. Animators like Danny Antonucci's "Lupo the Butcher", which was a huge Spike and Mike Sick & Twisted Animation hit! That film is another crazy obscure Canadian animated short that still blows my mind and pushes the limits of how crazy animation can be.

It always makes me sad when I mention Marv Newland's name to other filmmakers or people in the animation industry and they don't know his work. He was influential in pioneering the Vancouver animation industry into what it is today. Plus, his work is internationally renowned. I really encourage people to check out all of Marv's work and dive into the mind of a true Canadian indie animation legend.

P.S. Marv was born in the U.S. but we won't hold that against him!

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Thanks to the magic of the internet, this entertaining and colourful short film can be watched online without a honkin' huge Kelowna satellite dish!

Stay tuned for more Movie Night in Canada recommendations or check out our archives here.