THE ALMANAC: 12 Months' Allegories (Animated Short Film by Pasquale D'Amico)

The Almanac is an animated short that contains 12 small short films and each of them represents the allegory of a Month of the year. It is an atypical and unusual short, the result of hard research and artistic experimentation that lasted almost two years. Each small short film is made with a different animation technique and the various stories are narrated by a computerized voice. The Almanac is a great bazaar and inside you will find everything: dreams, fears, good hopes and bad ideas, mistakes, anger and love. Be aware!

Synopsis
About a year ago, I found a great book in the labyrinth of my mind. It was written in a strange language and was chock-full of phrases, projects, illustrations. It looked like a kind of bazaar that contained a bit of everything: astronomy, robotics, social relations and other strange things. Looking at it more carefully, I realized that this book was divided into 12 chapters and each chapter corresponded to a month of the year. I called it The Almanac.

Episode
00:00 Prologue
01:00 January: I was just a line
02:53 February: Self-destructive partners
05:48 March: Archetypal conflict
08:05 April: Bazaar
10:30 May: Who could I have been?
12:34 June: Just a strange dream
14:46 July and August: Summer interlude
15:39 September: My magic trick
17:29 October: Like a child of the last Century
19:34 November: Entropy
20:53 December: Epilogue

Credits
Written, animated, edited and directed by Pasquale D'Amico
Music by Maurilio Cacciatore, Al-Maranca, Gianfranco Rongo, Manuela Pasqui, Pasquale D'Amico
Audio Mastering: Antonio Castiello (Jambona Lab)
Color and Vfx (February, September, December) by Alberto Rodriguez
Actors: Daniele and Enrico Sperti
Film Cover: Davide “Dave” Ursini

Spoiler ALLERT!
January: “I was just a line”. It represents the relationship between the artwork and the artist who creates it. The artwork that survives its creator.

February: “Self-destructive couple”. It is a purgatory for a couple who first love each other then hate each other so much that they destroy themselves and die. In their purgatory they witness their destruction loops like in a theater. Emphasize destructive relationships and toxic people.

March: “Archetypal conflict”. Two artificial intelligences challenge each other: the first (woman) is good and wants to become human and she tries in every way. The second (male) is bad, cold and she wants to stop him. In the end, the woman wins over the man-machine. This episode hides female emancipation and the destruction of the phallocentric world.

April: “Bazaar”. It is simply a bazaar: a collection of jumbled things pressed into one place. In the various types of animation there is an allusion to the different experiences given by the various drugs.

May: "Who could I have been?" It represents the regret of a man who no longer knows who he is. It hides the mistakes made in life, suicide and family dramas.

June: "A strange dream": A woman dreams of a magical hula hoop inside which there is a sky. At some point she loses her circle and gets desperate, she searches for him in various dimensions of her dream but she doesn't find him and wakes up. It is a real dream that I had.

July and August: “Summer interlude”. It is a summer love disappointment of a woman.

September: “My magic trick”. This episode is very special because the whole "The Almanac" was born from here. Each scene of this episode are dreams that I have really had in the last 3/4 years and I stitched them together using the "fly map" device as glue. Many of these dreams concern some of you.

October: “Like a child of the last century”. Fun when there was no technology and you had fun with nothing.

November: “Entropy”. Life is entropy and in the end one dies irremediably (tribute to the month of the dead).

December: “Epilogue”. All the knots come to a head.

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