The Red Book
National Film Registry
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11m
Directed by Janie Geiser • Documentary • 1994 • 11 minutes
An elliptical, pictographic animated film that uses flat, painted figures and collage elements in both two and three-dimensional settings to explore the realms of memory, language, and identity from the point of view of an amnesiac.
The Red Book was shown as part of the 1996 New Directors / New Films Festival at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and was selected in 2009 to be a part of the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.
“The Red Book (is) Janie Geiser’s beautifully mysterious, animated short. Images appear as in a graceful collage: glimpses of words are written in white vanishing ink; a woman is drawn in outline, as if she were a paper doll made of red construction paper. Everything is red, white, black, or gray in this smashing little film, which has graphic flair and a surrealist edge.” —Caryn James, The New York Times
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