Animation: Alice Dunseath's short animation inspired by David Hockney

Date
25 February 2014

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Short films can often fall into the trap of a jarring sentimentality, but Alice Dunseath perfectly treads the line between quiet grief and witty observations about those around her in this beautiful animated short. Hunting for Hockney documents the journey she and a friend made to find David Hockney’s Yorkshire home in the midst of the grief of losing a loved one, and the frustrating difficulties of organising a funeral. Sad and funny in equal parts, she succeeds brilliantly in capturing the otherworldly pastel colours of English landscape with fragile snaking lines, intertwining the soft Yorkshire accents of people they happen to meet and elevating Hockney to an lamppost mystical figure in the process.

Filmmaker and animator Alice worked as a third assistant director on Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox before moving not to freelance work, training her eye with the bets of the bunch, so the quiet poignancy of this film shouldn’t come as a surprise. Here’s hoping for more yet to come!

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Alice Dunseath: Hunting for Hockney (still)

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Alice Dunseath: Hunting for Hockney (still)

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Alice Dunseath: Hunting for Hockney (still)

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Alice Dunseath: Hunting for Hockney (still)

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Alice Dunseath: Hunting for Hockney (still)

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About the Author

Maisie Skidmore

Maisie joined It’s Nice That fresh out of university in the summer of 2013 as an intern before joining full time as an Assistant Editor. Maisie left It’s Nice That in July 2015.

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