If you’re writing about Joni Männistö and thought you would get away with some exotic summary and that would be it, you’re in for a bumpy ride. Finnish Männistö is a sort of humble, proud Renaissance man of animation, and reading his interviews reminded us a bit of when David Lynch, while introducing Twin Peaks, pointed the journalists to a coffee table he’d just carved: Joni claims that the
pleasure of creating something with your own hands is unrivalled, that skipping from one technique to the next is natural and that you can do many beautiful things without perfectly mastering any of them. This is why Joni’s animations – from the multi-awarded Kuhina, the entomophobe’s nightmare that won a Special Mention for Animation at Lago Film Fest 2012, to the childish, stop-motion enthusiasm of
Electric Soul – could belong to different directors; curious directors, who space from insects to circuits and are all reasonably uncanny. “Compared to my classmates, I could barely draw”, he revelaed to Primanima. There’s a lesson to be learnt, somewhere between these lines.
KUHINA
Finland / 2011 / 7’18’’ / Anima
ELECTRIC SOUL
Finland / 2013 / 5’ / Anima
RECYCLING (AA.VV., artistic direction di Paola Bristot)
Italy / 2014 / 14’20’’ / Anima
WURMLOCH (AA.VV.)
Finland / 2016 / 12’28’’ / Anima
KATISKA (AA.VV.)
Finland / 2008 / 4’33’’ / Anima