Loading Docs 2014 - Baba

Web (Full Length) – 2014

Subtitled ‘a conversation with my grandfather’, this animated short sees Joel Kefali (director of the music video for Lorde’s ‘Royal’) documenting memories of his Turkish 'Baba' arriving in 1951 Auckland. Sausage rolls, dances and the death penalty are animated via cut-out shapes, and scored to Baba’s colourful pidgin phrasing — “go to the hell!”. Noel Murray of US website The Dissolve praised the “ample artistry” of Kefali’s familial tribute. Baba was a part of Loading Docs: a series of low budget three-minute long films made for online release.

There’s a lot of familial affection embedded in Baba, accompanied by ample artistry. Though the drawings are simplified, Kefali strings his little blobs and lines together so deftly that when he pulls back at the end to show the full picture of what Sol has been talking about, the effect is surprisingly poignant. And throughout Baba, Kefali moves his animator’s “camera” with purpose, scanning up, down, and side to side, expressing with omni-directionality how one man’s life can lead him into places he never would’ve imagined.
– Review of Baba on The Dissolve, by Noel Murray, 12 June 2014